


repairing and losing

by orphan_account



Series: DBH x LIS Crossover [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: (it's in another timeline dw aodijsaodij), Angst, Character Death, Crossover, Fluff, Gavin and Connor try to repair what they used to have, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Mentioned suicide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Redemption?, Suicide, Time Travel, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2020-12-14 08:18:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21012653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Connor came to back to his hometown Arcadia bay, a world he left behind. Throughout the five days he'll try to repair what he used to have between him and Gavin, and try to save the town through his ability to bend time and space.(Doesn't read like a normal fanfic)





	1. Before Calamity

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick heads up I will not be strictly following the plot of the game I will be changing things around to fit the fic better, I'll also be skipping a lot of plot and things so... yeah
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated.

1.

Connor came back to Arcadia Bay. Back to the lighthouse he used to go. Back to the beautiful shores he used to go where he would run into the water and laugh as the water crashed against him. Back to the town with so many memories. He never really liked Seattle, it was too much, too loud, too crowded. He likes the serenity of Arcadia Bay. He stared out of the window and looked outside when he arrived here. It’s always the same as he remembered, quiet, peaceful, pretty.

But a lot has changed since he left. It’s like a brand new town with old faces with new personalities. It’s weird, the kid next door his old house is now grown up, he’s changed to a sweet five-year-old to an arrogant and stubborn ten-year-old, the happily married couple turned bitter and sour and the old lady that used to walk the streets only sits on her veranda and yells at the teenagers. Everything went past him, flew by without him. 

He wonders how his Dad is doing back home. 

It’s a fleeting thought, only diving knee-deep before he walks into his class. Photography, he likes this class. Markus, from Seattle, always told him to be more creative, branch out, stop being like a ‘ _ machine’  _ and express himself. Connor remembers telling him to come to his house so he can teach him how to paint. It’s weird though, how he also left behind people, friends back at Seattle. Simon, gentle, kind and sweet. Josh, smart and a pacifist. North is the exact opposite of Josh, always ready to head on, head on first without thinking which—

“Connor? You right there?” Mr Zlakto says. He suddenly goes back down to reality, he’s still standing while everyone around him is sitting down.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, “I usually don’t get distracted like this.” Connor hears people around him murmur as he takes his seat, just near the window where the sunlight streams through the glass and lands on his table. He sets up his books and pencil and makes notes, scribbling them down quickly. He tries his best to ignore the stares, it feels like spears going through him.

_ Just focus Connor, you’ll be fine.  _

2.

_ It’s cold, it’s dark and it’s pouring hard. He doesn’t know where he is, he yells out in the storm but all that replies back is the lightning up above. He walks slowly up the hill and gets to the lighthouse. He looks out to the horizon, his eyes widening. There’s a hurricane, giant, shredding everything in its path. He’s left frozen, blank, in shock. He doesn’t know what to do as he stares at the lighthouse as it falls down on him and— _

He wakes up with a sharp inhale. He’s still here, in the classroom with Mr Zlakto teaching something about monochrome photography. He’s here—he’s alive—he’s not at the storm and there isn’t a hurricane in Arcadia Bay. He sighs, hand over his chest, feeling his chest quickly rise and fall. He bites his lip. Was it a dream? Or a nightmare? It didn’t feel like both. He could  _ feel  _ every single thing, the wind, the rain, the fear that froze him. It felt like he was going to die, right there and then, watch everything turn black and white as he dies and causes pain to everyone.

He rubs his temple and lets a shaky breath out.

Connor looks around him, making sure that reality isn’t playing any tricks at him. There’s still the chirping of birds outside the classroom. There’s still the girls who look at him with jealousy any time he answers questions to the teacher. There’s also Chloe, someone who he just met recently but gets along quite well. Chloe gives him a smile and mouths  _ wanna do something after class?  _ He shakes his head and mouths  _ no _ . Always going to do his homework and more, always striving for more, always being the best, don’t let failure grasp him and—

“I see that a couple of seconds ago that our two friends here seem to have a  _ very  _ interesting conversation,” Mr Zlakto looks at them both and fixes the collar of his shirt, he gets up from the table he was sitting in the middle and towards them, “would you like to share? Or contribute something to the conversation? Pick your poison kids.”

He eyes Chloe, he thinks she’s trying to apologise to him through eye movement. He would laugh if he isn’t concentrating right now.

“There are some great photos of—“

“Not something from you Connor, perhaps something from Chloe,” he looms over Chloe with a surface friendly smile but with a threatening undertone. He looks at both of them, fixing his hair and tying it up into a bun and scratching his messy beard. Chloe always said something about Mr Zlakto being a hipster, only needing glasses and to lose a couple of pounds.

Chloe doesn’t answer. He wants to answer, but the nagging thought of the experience he had just a moment ago is slowly swallowing him whole. He needs to go to the bathroom, relieve himself, look at himself in the mirror and take deep breaths.

One of the girls starts to giggle. Chloe keeps staying still. There’s no end to this, he’ll have to step up.

“One of the most influential American photographers in the 20th century is Edward Weston. He’s mainly known for his monochrome photography, he’s also—“

“Chloe, detention and Connor very good,” he eyes both of them. Connor bites his lip and keeps tapping his foot, a habit he can’t shake off. If only he had his coin to flip.

“Mr Zlakto, can I go to the bathroom? Won’t take long.”

He eyes him, looking at his feet and his eyes. Connor looks down on the ground.

“Fine, off you go. But remember Connor to send in your entry, I will be expecting it soon the deadline is only five days away.”

He gets his books and bolts out of the door. The hallway is empty, some of the conversations from the classroom pouring into the hallway. It’s weird, eerie, he can hear his footsteps, feel like some sort of calm is present right now. He makes his way to the bathroom, his eyes scanning through the missing posters about a girl called  _ Tina Chen. _

He moves quicker as he reaches the bathroom, the door creaking in the silence. He’s alone, no one is around him. He lets himself relax, his shoulder dropping as he looks at himself in the mirror. He looks a little worn out with the bags under his eyes, but he still looks put together. Black jeans and the Settle Police Department T-shirt, the white letters look faded, but it’s what his Dad gave to him before he left, a reminder.

He turns on the tap and the freezing water hits his face. It wakes him up just a little bit, making him think clearly, come to his senses and resettle his thoughts. Connor sighs, letting himself smile at the little doodle on the mirror. He looks around the bathroom, the plain blue walls staring at him, the plain white tiles on the floor, plain white sinks. Everything is plain.

Maybe it’ll be a good photo for his entry, everything he’s been taking photos of is far too complicated.

He walks to the end of the bathroom, staring at the graffiti on the wall, all written with a black sharpie. It’s the basic school vandalism in the bathroom:

_ School sucks. _

_ Fuck this shitty place. _

_ If I had time travel I would go back and fix everything. _

_ Don’t forget to wipe your ass dumbass. _

_ Do drugs, stay in vegetables and eat your school. _

It’s kinda funny.

  
He pulls out his polaroid camera, a gift from an old friend of his. Just as a butterfly comes in he takes a picture, the flash scaring the creature and flying away through the opening of the window. The whirring fills the silence as he puts the photo in his pocket, he can wait for it to develop.

  
  


3.

It’s like he’s watching a car crash happen in slow motion, stuck, helpless. He’s frozen with fear as he watches Leo threaten someone with a gun. Connor can hear his heartbeat inside his ears, growing louder and louder as the seconds go by and--

An ear-splitting bang echoes throughout the bathroom. Everything goes to a standstill. He can do something, can he? But is it too late? He yells out and gets out of the corner, hand out like he’s trying to reach for something, change it all back, save someone’s life, undo the damage.

Reality caves in. Time and space breaks in front of him. Everything is pulsing around him.

Then he’s back in Mr Zlakto’s classroom.

4.

  
Connor’s stiff, not knowing what to do. It’s awkward inside the car, the silence ringing loudly inside his ears. It feels like he should anything, break the silence and spill open his secrets. Say why he hasn’t called him in all these years. Say why he left him behind without telling him, leaving him all alone in this quiet town. 

He puts his head against the window, looking out into the road. The sun filters through the trees and makes its way into the car, lighting everything in a yellow hue. The scenery, this moment, it’s supposed to be peaceful and tranquil. But it’s tainted by the past and the awkwardness of not knowing what to do.

“I’m sorry,” Connor mumbles, way too quiet for him to hear. It’s all he can say.

“You left me,” Gavin replies.

“You look different, you dyed your hair blue, where did you get that scar on your nose?”

“Shut up.”   
  
“Sorry.”   
  
Silence.

  
  


5.

“Where are we going?”

“To my house.”

“I have other classes I have to go to.”

“Ditch them.”

“But I can’t just ditch them.”

“If you go back you’ll get torn apart by  _ him _ .”

“It was just a misunderstanding.”

“It didn’t fucking look like it  _ Connor _ .”

“Gavin drive me back.”

“ _ No _ .”

Silence.

It’s like their drowning, holding on to their words that they want to say. Never let it out, keep it in. They’ll rather drown than let the words that they want to say escape. All they let out is awkward conversations that fill the silence between them.

Connor bites his lip. Gavin sighs, he drives the car a little bit faster.

6.

“What did you do to Leo?”

“Nothing,” Connor hums.

He feels Gavin’s eyes bury deep into him, Gavin knows he’s lying, but he’s not saying anything about it.

“Nothing,” Gavin repeats like he’s mocking him, there’s also the undertone of anger and the intent to annoy Connor, make him feel guilty for lying. It’s the way that Gavin manipulates people, like how they were children and Connor would lie in front of his face and Gavin, Gavin will always know the truth. 

Then he’ll torment him and manipulate him, _ do this for me, do that for me, play with me, stay there, buy me ice cream, I don’t have money, yeah you do you wanna let me tell them about--, no Gavin I do fine! No fair. _ And it’ll end with Gavin sharing the chocolate ice cream that they got from the convenience store, the slow, cool wave spreading throughout his body while the both of them sit under the summer sun, pulling the grass underneath them as they complain about their Dads.

Connor looks in front of him. It’s Gavin’s old house. It’s still the same despite the peeling paint, the American flag that’s hardly waving in the wind, but the balloons that were on the front of the house from Gavin’s 10th birthday isn’t there, the red Toyota car that’s poorly parked isn’t there and so is the lawnmower that sits on the just in front of the garage door.

It’s like everything changed but still stayed the same.

Connor quietly makes his way inside, following Gavin just three steps behind him. The door opens, Gavin sighs and the door thuds as it’s closed by a sudden gust of wind. The inside feels like it’s void of colour, happiness, the feeling of a family living inside it. It’s bare, bare of the drawings made by Gavin when he was a child, bare of decoration that fills the space, it’s bare of any memories.

It’s just like an empty shell of what it used to be.

He quickly follows Gavin up the stairs, the groan echoes throughout the house. He catches a glimpse of the bathroom before he walks into Gavin’s room. Connor remembers bits and pieces of his old room, the toy basket in the corner, posters about cartoons hung up the walls, glow up stars stuck to the ceiling and a ben 10 blanket that somehow always smelled like fruit loops..

But it isn’t like this, in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s like it’s stripped away of innocence and just left with loneliness. Band posters hang up the wall, a clear outline of where photos once were, just above his messy bed, like Gavin threw away photos that captured memories, buried them deep underground and never seen again. There are also random doodles scribbled on the walls,  _ hole to another universe  _ with an arrow pointing to a circle, an Illuminati triangle,  _ just gotta let go  _ and  _ throw everything away _ . Everything in his room is messy, from the boxes to the clothes scattered across the room.

“What?” Gavin mumbles, “too messy for you, highness?”

Connor doesn’t answer, words get stuck inside his throat.

Connor crosses his arms, he awkwardly sits on a chair. He watches Gavin pull out a shoebox from underneath his bed, a roll of weed, he pushes the shoebox back under his bed and he lays on his messy bed, staring at the ceiling. 

Connor’s eyes keep shifting everywhere, not knowing where to look, maybe at the flickering flame from Gavin’s lighter, maybe at the posters, maybe at the stash of toys which they used to play from but is now tucked away inside the closet. Maybe he should leave, get away from here, never come back.

“I’m going back.”

A pause.

He stands up and walks towards the door, he looks behind him, watching Gavin get high on weed that probably cost 20 per gram, much too expensive for only the feeling of a high.

“Not even gonna say a thank you?” 

Connor looks behind him.

“Thank you.”

Silence.

“If you go you’re going to get killed by him.”

“I thought you were going to yell at me if I wanted to go back, is that what you said in the car?.”

“I’m too lazy and tired and too fucking high,” the way that Gavin hummed it, it sounded like he was torn, between two decisions. Gavin looks at him, his stare burying deep into him, telling him something, something on the lines of ‘ _ Don’t go, stay here with me because the silence is too loud and rings forever and ever and ever and--’ _

“Fine, leave.”

Gavin says the exact opposite. His tone monotone, flat. He doesn’t care.

Connor doesn’t, he slowly makes his way towards Gavin, sitting next to him, feeling the mattress dip. It feels like he’s on dangerous territory, a slope. He might mess it all up. He knows that he would have left if it was any case, go back to his dorm, study until it’s midnight, aim for the top.

It’s what he’s good at, right?

A car going past the house, the rustle of the leaves, laughing from the children of the neighbourhood, the weird musky smell of weed that hangs in the air. There’s a sense of tranquil, but he feels awkward, a world he left behind is right here, but it feels like he’s been gone for far too long.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

He thinks Gavin heard what he said.

7.

He doesn’t know how what led up to this point, but there’s a sombre playing of the guitar playing in the background with the windy lyrics that accompany it. It feels like he finally has enough time to stop and sit still, staring at the ceiling on Gavin’s bed. 

“Wanna smoke?”

“I’m good.”

“What too much of a goody goody gum drop--”

“Have you seen what it does to you?”

“I know, dumbass.”

Silence.

  
It feels like right now, everything is okay, that he isn’t stressing about grades or school, or making sure to text his Dad every week to go to the therapist or to take his meds. It feels like it’s a simple life right now, going back in time, back when he and Gavin were friends.

But what are they now?

He watches the smoke spiral up and up into the air, before vanishing into thin air, like it’s trying to reach for something, the stars, the sky, then falling and falling hard then disappearing.

8.

He hid in the closet, peering through, he’s forgetting how to breathe but what matters right now is Gavin. He watches him yell at his Father, but he looks different from before, no moustache or the T-shirt of some police force. He’s much taller, stronger, fiercer, no sense of gentleness present.

Connor has to bite his tongue,  _ don’t say a word just fucking hide _ , that’s what Gavin told him right?

_ “Get the fuck out of my room no one’s here!” _

_ “Is this your fucking pot?” _

And at that moment, he feels like he should get out of the closet, reach out and say  _ it’s mine, not his, I’m sorry I would never do it again I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry _ .

But he doesn’t.

So what happens instead is that he keeps biting his tongue, Gavin yells at him, but what he got in return is a punch in the face, sending him to the ground. He looks like a poor dog, beaten, staring at the ground, not looking up, holding his face while tears fall to the ground. There’s no fury or anger that boiling, he’s just defeated, gone, face blank.

_ “Don’t ever talk to me like that ever again! And that’s an order.” _

Steps slowly grow faint until it just echoes and he can hear it underneath him, the silence is broken now, no more peace and tranquillity, all that’s left is suffering and pain, everything is broken, can’t piece together the moment they had together five minutes ago. He can rewind, he could.

So he tries, space and time splitting in front of him. But it’s too far, too far gone, he can’t reach it, it’s just there, right at his fingertips but he can’t quite grasp it.

So now he’s drowning in guilt.

9.

“I’m sorry.”

“Just get the fuck away from here, I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“Gavin I--”   
  
“Just. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

10.

_ I’m sorry _

It feels like he’s said it a lot today, too much, so much that it’s filling up the room and he could drown. He tries to fit his sorries with too many words, too much.

And he thinks about how Gavin looked, defeated, destroyed. He was so full of anger and fury until he got shot down. Gavin’s like that when he was a child, having anger that he can’t control, then it poisons his veins and he can’t think clearly until he’s shut down, defeated, destroyed, blank,  _ nothing _ .

_ I’m sorry. _

_ I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. _

_ I’m sorry I left you behind. _


	2. Fixing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an example that the ep 2 of lis isn't like this chapter, it's similar, but not quiet. I decided to take away the suicide of Chloe/Kate because I'm making her more active in the story. Im so sorry for a late update im such a horrible writer ofiapfiapodis
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated <3

1.

_ The hurricane is tearing everything: houses filled with warm memories, trees with marked names with the promise that they would always be together and the places where people had their first kisses. It’s going to ruin everything. He reaches out and tries to reverse time, fix it all and go back. But his power isn’t working, it’s gone. Because he’s the reason the storm existed in the first place. _

He wakes with sweat, panting, his lungs starved from oxygen. Calm down, breathe. He puts his hand over his heart, he can hear it pulse inside his ears too. Connor pulls his knees close and balances his elbow on it, he runs his clammy hands through his hair and lets a shaky breath through.

He looks outside, it’s dead in the night, three am. Three am is the time when there’s this eerie, calm silence floating through, when it feels like the entire of Arcadia bay just stopped. But three am is also the time when people go out at night, sneak out into parties, get drunk, regret everything the next day. It’s a weird dynamic.

He stands up, the old blue carpet feels rough against his bare feet. The light outside from the lampost barely reaches his room, making it easier to see where his laptop is. He’s restless, can’t sleep, exhaustion just suddenly left his body and now he has so much energy inside him.

Monotonous clicking from his mouse, chirping of crickets, the calls from the owls and the occasional car that drives past Blackwell Academy. He wonders where they’re going, maybe out of Arcadia Bay, go as far as possible so that the guilt doesn’t reach him, he would pack his bag and three pairs of clothes is enough for him, he thinks, maybe a bottle of water and some cash as well. Maybe it’s enough to outrun the guilt of leaving behind Gavin, run away, never look back.

_ But isn’t what he did to Gavin? _

He clicks on random websites and videos, ones about time travel, black holes, wormholes, what would happen if time travel existed, titles like:  _ Time travel can’t exist because it upsets the plan of God _ . Anything he can get his hands on, even the most bizarre ones, maybe he can find something in there, like finding a key at the bottom of the laundry.

2.

It’s five am now, the sun is slowly rising, waking up Arcadia bay to start another day. He doesn’t have enough time to look at the sky and see the sunrise paint pretty colours across the sky. Because he’s drowning, drowning in guilt as he tries to turn back time again, further and further, slowly and surely, he can go back far enough to fifteen hours ago when he can step in and take the blame for Gavin so guilt doesn’t drown him any longer, and maybe even longer than that to stop the hurricane going straight towards Arcadia bay.

3.

“You look like shit.”

This is what Connor wore this morning:

  * Black sweatpants with a stain near his leg
  * A hoodie of a metal band from his father, the skull faded away.
  * The same shirt he wore yesterday.
  * Cheap sneakers that easily break within the first month, the strings all dirty with dirt and mud.

“Sorry.”

“And you sound like shit.”

“Stop judging me Chloe, I had to pull an all-nighter.”

“On what?”   
  
Connor stops walking, everything freezes on him. He can’t tell her that there’s going to be a hurricane that will rip through the small town, it’ll be in the headlines, all across social media with famous celebrities tweeting about them sending thoughts and prayers before it’ll fade out and no one will care anymore. He also can’t tell her about how he couldn’t rewind back to eighteen hours ago to take the blame for Gavin, to stop the guilt, a single step to repair what him and Gavin used to have. Just thinking about it all is making guilt rise and it’s getting harder to breathe.

He can’t tell her all of that.

  
So he lies instead.

“I was playing a game on my laptop, “ he says, tries to muster a smile, “addicted.”

Chloe doesn’t believe him one bit, he knows that. But it’s enough to fill the precious three seconds, the time it takes between for him to walk into his science class. Chloe waves at him, before disappearing back into the crowd.

4.

Leo shows up to class way too late.

It’s just fifteen minutes before the class would end, the monotonous murmuring of Ms. Grant repeating the same thing he made himself read and memorise over and over again. It’s like an echo repeating back at him, but that stops, silence spills into the room like an alarm. Everyone is quiet, not looking at Leo, not wanting to get a bruise on their face after school.

“Leo Manfred,” she smiles, but he knows it’s fake, too forced, “have a seat next to Connor.”

  
The others are staring at their books, pretending to write down the notes from the fading ink on the whiteboard. But Connor got caught, he accidentally stares at Leo.

And he stares back.

There’s fury, he can see it. It’s just stirring away and it’s waiting to bubble and explode, all the fury would burst after school, when the both of them have bruises, heaving heavily near the dorms while Connor waits for another fist to fire at him. Everyone has noticed now, stopped what they were doing and just stares at the victim.

“Mr. Manfred please have a seat,” she says a little too loudly. She stares at both of them, Connor will have to thank her later.

Leo gets on his way, staring at Connor the whole time, Connor keeps his eyes on the floor, however. He can just feel it, the fury, like a fire flickering away, almost licking him as he heard Leo pass by him and slump on his seat, sighing heavily. Everything goes back to normal, the deafening silence waning away as Ms Grant starts talking again.

5.

He almost slipped off to the dream again, the one with the hurricane going straight towards Arcadia bay. He was close, the white tiles beneath him turning to dirt, he could feel the wind slowly pick up with the rain slashing him like tiny knives. He was close to reliving it, but the bell quickly saved him, loud, deafening, making him almost fall out of his seat.

He’s the last one to get his books, Connor can hear the conversations, the hurried footsteps from exhausted students in the hallway and spilling into the hallway.

But it means he’s stuck with Leo.

His Dad is a police officer in Seattle, a detective and a good one at that. He’s heard many cases his dad solved from the Red Ice that caused him to go to Detroit, from cracking the cold case of a famous murder to the missing persons cases. He doesn’t say the details, too much and too gruesome.

But his Dad did teach him some self-defence.

Some, enough to keep him at bay and survive if he’s caught in an unlucky situation. He’s taught him kicks, how to block, how to disarm someone with a weapon. Connor known all of this, his Dad made him remember all of it because he was so scared of losing his son.

But he can’t process it, he’s frozen with fear as he quickly picks up his books and tries to go out of the door. The fury, the flames licking him is back again.

“You’re dead Connor Anderson.” 

He doesn’t bother to look back, he just runs out of the door and goes straight to his Dorm. It’s repeating, all over and over again. Eight that escaped his mouth and spilled into the ears of the principal of Blackwell.  _ . _

6.

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: Chloe can we talk I think Leo was trying to kill me after science  _

_ Dumb Bitch: What do you mean? _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: I’ll explain later i just need an excuse to get out of blackwell. _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: meet me at the back of the dorms i dont wanna see Leo _

_ Dumb Bitch: gimme ten minutes have to finish somethin up _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: ty  _

7.

He shouldn’t have told the principal that Leo Manfred had a gun in the bathroom.

Connor told him yesterday, it was a stupid thing to do. Leo caught him in the parking lot, but Gavin showed up with his car, a million words wanting to get out of his mouth when the was the first time in a long time he saw him but he couldn’t get them out. It was too late however, he saved him, but now it feels cold between them.

Because of that, it feels like a gun is going to fire right at him when Leo sees him. A bullet will go straight through him, letting him bleed out on the floor along with his regrets and guilt and all Leo would say is  _ “I own this place don’t ever pull that shit.” _

But something is bothering him, many things are. How Gavin didn’t text him back when Connor gave him his number, how the ‘dream’ he has keeps popping up, a hurricane going straight towards Arcadia Bay, destroying everything in its path. It’s like everything is happening all at once.

_ A storm. _

_ And it’ll tear him apart. _

“Hey.”

  
He looks up and sees Chloe smiling at him, she stands in front of him, her in the afternoon sunlight where everything is alive while he’s sitting on the grass, in the shadow of the building. 

Silence, the sounds of distant laughing, cars driving by and the birds isn’t enough.

“I know that this is going to sound weird but-I… Let’s walk.”

Connor stands up, he feels his phone ring as he walks besides Chloe. It’s a steep hill they have to walk to get out of Blackwell secretly. A hidden path that they keep a secret, just behind the boy’s dorms, walk down the hill which is filled with trees and dense forest. Just further than that it opens up do the shops, ones that have overpriced cafes, thrift stores with dresses that are too big and the supermarket that always has sales

He gets to the last step, he almost slips, he quickly grabs a branch and sighs, catching his breath. He stays still for a moment, looking up into the bright blue sky, an endless sea. It’s peaceful, it feels like a break from the storm brewing.

8.

_ Pick your poison. _

He doesn’t know what to tell Chloe, too much bubbling up, only one can spill out of his lips and lay it out into the open. 

“I told the principal that Leo Manfred had a gun in the bathroom.”

The minute of silence is shattered, gone, discarded. Chloe stops talking and looks at him, thinks that’s he’s lying, joking. He shouldn’t have said it, it’ll become a domino effect, explain what happened and the story and it’ll come out too much. He’ll tell too much, a hurricane, a boy, Arcadia Bay.

_ A boy. _

_ He values it above all the rest. _

“Connor you just landed yourself a death sentence.”

  
“He stared at me in science when he came in late, I felt like he was going to kill me.”

She looks around the quiet street, there’s no one around at this hour. Everyone going home to spend the rest of the afternoon in the living room watching news while drinking tea. She crosses her arms and sighs.

“Why did you tell him that, you know he’s untouchable and runs the whole school.”

“I know it’s just that I wanted to--”

Connor stops himself. He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, did he do it for Gavin? Get something back for him, punish Leo just a little bit. It’s like what they did when they were kids, get Rachel back for being mean to Gavin because she didn’t let him on the slide, maybe write a note, make a rumour. Connor always trying to get something back.

  
He’s so stupid and so childish. Something he’s always told, stupid and childish. Always wanting something  _ more _ , reach out, take as many sweets as possible with Gavin before they’re shooed away. He bites his bottom lip, looking at Chloe. He’s thinking, nerves slowly making his way through his body, where is he?

Chloe stops walking, she crosses her arms and sighs, looking at him with the eyes of  _ ‘you’re hiding something _ , “Is it true, did you actually see him with a gun in the bathroom?”

“I-I think he was going crazy or something, he was staring at himself in the mirror and waving his gun around,” Connor mumbles, Chloe looks at him funny, “I’m not kidding! I swear I saw him burst into the bathroom and I had to hide as soon as possible because I was so freaked out and--”

“Okay, okay,” she chuckles, the type that sounds like she’s teasing him. But when the moment stopped, when Connor looked at her with all the worry, with the nerves on his fingers and nibbling of his lower lip, Chloe knew he wasn’t joking.

“Oh Connor.”

“I didn’t know what to do Chloe, I-” 

He stops himself, he sees Gavin just at the other end of the street, putting up missing person posters from a girl called  _ Tina Chen _ . 

He stares at him from afar, he stares back too, dropping the poster. Connor feels every memory go past him, years upon years upon years. 

But suddenly, blood-red blooms from Gavin’s chest. A loud  _ bang  _ from a bullet haunts him, he feels numb for a moment. He reaches out, turns back time, stop the consequence, save him. Everything around him looks like bending, time and space breaking apart just for a boy.

_ A boy. _

_ Fix the present, change the future and unfold it into the chaos _

And just ten seconds ago, he’s there, alive.

9.

He doesn’t know where they are, Gavin’s taking him somewhere, he doesn’t know where. Connor just took him away and when the bullets fired and echoed the both of them ran away, with a quick message to Chloe to go back to the dorms and stay safe. It’s like trading a friend for a friend.

_ A boy and a girl. _

He watches Gavin struggle to hold the posters, not wanting to let go of them, not wanting to leave behind a trail of posters full of tears and memories. He hasn’t said anything to him, only holding his hands too tightly. Connor doesn’t know what to do, it feels like they’re back to their old friendship. But their friendship has always been strange, fluctuating to hating each other because of Gavin’s flaring anger and Connor’s hesitation to becoming best friends again.

It’s like what had of the last day of Arcadia bay. Connor told him he was leaving, left him all alone. It ended with tears and shouting and bruise on Connor’s face, he punched him too, he left behind a bruise on his chest before they were pulled apart. 

It’s strange, hating each other then slowly repairing it all back.

Gavin lets go of his hand and suddenly he wants the warmth back, the squeezing of his hand full of fear, it’s like a piece of him just left him behind.

Connor trails behind him as they walk deeper into the forest. It makes him think of what they were when they were kids, Gavin leading the way, Connor trailing behind him just a step short.

The forest breaks and there’s an abandoned junkyard that appears out of nowhere, out to the left there are the train tracks all rusty and old. It feels like a secret, a pocket outside the world. It’s peaceful, the pleasant wind blowing past that picks up the scent of the forest and along with the secrets. There’s mountains of junk, from plastic to a school bus to a full toilet.

It’s like a break from all the chaos.

Gavin puts the pile of missing person posters down onto the ground and pulls a plastic chair from the mountain of junk, it looks alright. Then he pats away all the dirt and breaks all the webs, and he sits on it, relaxing, melting into it like nothing ever happened. Connor pulls out the polaroid camera from his bag, makes sure that Gavin is in the frame, then takes the shot. The quiet humming fills the silence, he puts the photo on his bag, tuck it away like a secret.

The stillness settles in, peaceful. With the echoes of the forest all around them.

“How did you know that I was going to get shot?” Gavin hums, Connor’s eyes widen.

“Time travel,” Connor says flatly. He says it seriously, the truth out in the open while hoping that Gavin would laugh at him, ease the awkwardness between them. And he does, a sweet one, something so innocent and funny and something he hasn’t heard in a long time. 

“You have to be kidding me Connor,” he says. Gavin wipes away the tears before standing up, putting the posters on the chair. Connor should say something about them, does Gavin know who Tina is? 

He opens his mouth to say something about the posters, but Gavin looks at him with a dreadful longing, it’s like he’s telling him to not talk about her. Don’t bring it up, don’t let the wound open any wider. It feels like everything between them just suddenly fell, now it’s awkward again, heavy, stiff.

“I’m being serious,” Connor quickly says. He hopes it lifted the heaviness between them, started back up again. The chains that were holding them both slithers away, the heaviness is gone. Gavin stands up and looks at his muddied shoes, then he looks at Connor.    
  


“Okay,” he mumbles, “predict the future then.”

10.

There’s a weird atmosphere, like they’re just playing like kids again. Like just after years upon years they picked up they’re friendship back up again and nothing has changed. But when both of them are running around or when Gavin brags about how much of a great shot and Connor tells him he missed because he rewinded just a moment ago. It feels like a fragile bridge, it’s ready to give out at any moment.

And it’s scaring him, the threat just looming over him. 

“You have to be fucking kidding me.”

“I told you.”

Gavin puts down the gun onto the table and crosses his arms. It feels like a magical moment, dust floating in the sunlight as Gavin fixes his blue hair. There’s a strange pull, an undertow, something that Connor almost missed. Gavin smiles at him, innocent, sweet.

“Okay,” Gavin pauses, sitting on top of the table, he looks around the junkyard, stretching his arms so the T-shirt of some random band lifts up and reveals just a little bit of his chest. He looks at Connor, putting his hands inside his pocket.

“Since you can time travel, tell me what will happen at the end of the week.”

Connor feels like his lungs just gave out, no more oxygen for him to breathe.

For a split second, he remembers the storm. The one that will shred everything and ruin families and lives, one that will forever give people memories, one that will make him break. He almost went back into the world of it again, the bullet-like rain on his face, the wind, the lighthouse.

He can’t tell him.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, “I-I have to go.”

There’s panic inside him, anxiety. It’s building up and it’s threatening to explode and ruin everything. He has to leave, he has to get out of the junkyard. His legs moves on it’s own and it feels like it’s getting harder to breathe even though he  _ knows  _ how to breathe.

“So you’re just going to leave me like you did years ago?”

Connor can’t respond back, he wants to. Scream out and tell him he’s there for him. But he can’t tell him what will happen, it’s too much. He’s already suffocating from it all, it feels he’s going to drown from it all. Gavin is always like this, getting pissy when Connor does something that Gavin doesn’t want. 

_ I’m sorry Gavin _

“Don’t come back,” Gavin mumbles. He can hear the silent fury in his voice, burning away with all his anger that he always has.

11.

He didn’t know how it unfolded. He heard screaming for help. Connor runs towards it, the forest suddenly opening up and revealing train tracks. Gavin’s there, his foot stuck in the train tracks. He can hear the train in the distance, echoing throughout the forest and scaring away the birds as they fly away.

“Jesus Christ somebody help me!”

Within quick thinking he puts his hands out, turns back time, don’t let him die. He feels the very fabric of time and space bending, it can break at any moment, ruin the world around him and start calamity. But he needs to save him, save Gavin, save Gavin like he couldn’t a few years ago when he ran away for the big city.

_ Save him. _

His head hurts, it feels like it’s about to collapse. He rewinded a few moments back. He sees Gavin walking towards the train tracks, he picks up a piece of rock and throws it as far as possible. After a few seconds, a silent  _ thud _ carries back to Gavin. Connor runs out to him even though it feels like he might give out at any second.

“Gavin.” 

He collapses into his arms, it feels like his legs just gave out. He can’t use his powers anymore, too burnt out and dead. This is the only chance he has. There are tears in his eyes, streaming down his face. He wants to say more,  _ don’t die, don’t move, please just stay here _ .

_ Don’t leave me. _

He doesn’t feel Gavin move, just standing still and confused. Connor feels all the anger, the fury slowly melting away from Gavin. He keeps holding him, but all his strength feels like it’s getting siphoned away. He’s sobbing now, shaking. He needs to hold on, keep Gavin here.

“I’m sorry,” Connor mumbles.

“What do you mean?”

“You were going to die, you were going to get stuck in the train tracks and die. I’m sorry.”

_ I’m so sorry. _

His vision is getting cloudy, blurry. The branches of the trees is slowly turning into just lines. Connor knows he doesn’t have long, he hears the train go past, the ground shaking and a deafening scream from the train echoes throughout the forest. Gavin’s frozen, Connor’s about to give out.

And he does, going limp with damp tears on his cheeks.

11.

_ “That was a warning shot for you Gavin, when are you going to pay your debts?” _

His head feels light, echoing with pain inside. He grits his teeth and stands up, his visions blurry. 

“Gavin?”

Nothing, no answer. Just the still silence that brings fear into Connor.

Plain blooms inside his head, it’s like its growing more and more. He leans against the crate, shaky breaths coming out of his mouth. He needs to find him, but his vision is spotty, black dots disappearing and appearing. He feels sick, he feels like he’s going to throw up.

“Gavin?”

“I’m here, you fainted now shut up and let me handle this myself.”

In any occasion, he would smile, maybe laugh. Because Gavin’s slowly coming back, the taunting and the fire that’s somehow always hiding in his voice is back. But he can’t smile, he’s frozen. There’s a man in front of Gavin, he looks ragged, dangerous. There’s a menacing presence him, a wickedness, with a knife out and threatening to stab someone who gets close to him.

He looks around, there’s something he can do right? He moves closer to the table, scattered with broken pieces of bottles from their target shooting, the gun sitting just at the end of the table. Connor quickly swipes it and aims at him, hands shaky, unsure of what he’s doing.

The man’s attitude, in a split second he’s slowly backing off, hands in the air, “you don’t know what you’re doing kid.”

He has some sort of idea on how to shoot, his Dad told him. Just aim, arm straight, hand steady, keep one eye closed and breathe through your nose slowly. He doesn’t want to do that, cause more chaos by letting a bullet kill someone. He’s torn apart, he’s feeling the silent cries from Gavin:  _ don’t shoot, don’t you fucking shoot I didn’t ask you to get involved put the gun down before I shoot you myself _ .

It’s getting harder to breathe. He’s drowning in the possibility that the both of them will die and it’ll forever be burned into his mind, a memory taunting him forever because—

He lets the bullet rip.

But there’s no bullet, none. Just an awkward click looms over them and silence follows after. The man laughs at them, Connor drops the gun and walks away from it.

“At the end of the week I expect the debt to be paid,” the man hums, getting close to Gavin, he can see Gavin slowly crack but hiding it by gritting his teeth, “try bullets next time, brainiacs.”

The man walks away as if nothing happened, quickly forgotten and forgiven. The silence, the awkwardness settles in. 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Gavin whispers to himself.

He shouldn’t have done all of this, he needs to turn back time, wind back and let everything unfold by itself. He puts his hand out and gets ready for time to break beneath him, but at the corner of his eye he sees Gavin approaching him with the missing posters on his hands, with the face of  _ Tina Chen  _ on the front. 

Gavin looks at him in the eye, and it looks like he tries to muster a smile. But he drops it, too scared to repair what they once have, say a simple thank you or appreciation. He just walks past him and murmurs a  _ let’s get out of here _ . It’s like Gavin’s scared, trying to not repair what they used to have because it can quickly break open again and leave both of them torn apart.

_ Let’s get out of here _

Connor drops his hand, looking at the forest, the abandoned junkyard. So much happened, too much. He hesitantly follows Gavin.

12.

“Who’s Tina Chen?”

Silence, it’s like Connor just broke the peace between them.

“No one.”

Gavin turns on the radio, the static filling the silence, unable to repair the wound that Connor just opened. 

13.

“If you do anything like that ever again Connor I—”

“You’ll kill me,” Connor mumbles, “I know.”

Orange is splattered across the sky, warm, soft. It reminds him of winter nights and a tiny campfire that him and his Dad used to have. He misses that, he’s miles away from that. But him and Chloe sitting at the front of the school and staring into the sky is somehow close to that.

He rubs his palm, looking at his feet.

Suddenly an uproar crosses the whole school, gasps, more conversations picking up. Both of them look up to the sky, there’s an eclipse happening. The bright sun slowly being blocked by the moon, it looks like the abyss, dark, scary. Holding many secrets and hiding the truth.

“There’s no predicted eclipse today,” Chloe says, she holds Connor’s hands tightly. He knows she’s worried, a little panicky. It’s like this, hold each other’s hands and it’ll be okay for a little bit, “the next is one is months away.”

The wind howls, a sudden chill washes over Connor. It’s like the calm before the calamity, a little peace before a giant storm.

_ A hurricane _

“I feel like something’s going to happen to Arcadia bay,” Connor says. He squeezes Tina’s hand, there’s nerves circulating around his bloodstream, “maybe like a storm is happening or something.”

Connor nibbles on his lower lip. The sun hides behind the clouds, but it can’t hide from the moon. It’s like fate, the abyss, the consequences always catches up. Something is going to happen, not just the hurricane, there is something going to happen. Maybe something with Tina Chen, who Gavin had a full-on history with. 

Maybe he’ll even find out more about his power.

“I’m scared,” Connor whispers.

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if... you drew fanart of this fanfic, im kidding.... unless?
> 
> Tumblr: Blepbean


	3. scattered pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snzbznznzk IM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING THIS FIC. Anyways this is much longer than the other chapters (11k) and it’s going to get hectic fast, the next chapter will dapple more into some... robotic side of things. Idk what to feel abt this chapter tbh, I feel like it’s bad and my writing style didn’t showcase properly, anyways thanks for like the three people that still support and read this!
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated

1.

He’s restless, he can’t sleep.

It all crashed down quickly all in front of him, leaving no time for Connor to slowly digest it all. All he wanted was to make up for the giant gaping hole in front of him and Gavin, try to make up for the lost time that happened in such a horrible time. He had to leave as soon as the funeral ended, wanting to reach forward, turn back time and save Gavin’s dad. Now he has it, bending time and space on his own will without knowing the consequences while seeing new faces that disrupts the whole order of the town. Connor’s slowly starting to understand the creeping consequences. But it’s all rolling downhill too quickly, he doesn’t think he can stop all the problems even with his power.

  
He nibbles on his lower lip.

He can’t distract himself. Too many thoughts and questions plaguing his mind, hardly any answers to solve any of the questions that are plaguing him stuck, wandering in limbo as he tries to settle on how to suppress the powers of gods. Time travel, the consequences it holds. Gavin and the old man that almost shoots him in the junkyard. The kind Chloe with her blonde hair, and how--

_ How he can hold his friendship with her _

_ “You can’t always sit on the fence, Connor. Y-you gotta choose something.” _

It’s stupid, how it reminds him back to his Dad telling him what chocolate bar to pick when he was ten at a 7/11 on their road trip to California. He sighs, stares at his phone. He  _ wants  _ to call someone or maybe text, get it all out of his head and leave his mind empty for just a few moments. Connor wants to throw away his power that can cause massive ripples across the universe, his plaguing thoughts that leave seeds of doubts. Someone else can have the responsibility of having this ticking time bomb right at his fingertips. He stops scrolling, thumb hovering over the contact.

2.

_ Connor: Hey _

_ Gavin is typing… _

3.

He waits for a reply.

4.

Hoping

5.

Waiting

6.

That’ll get a stupid text from his lost childhood friend that he pushed long ago but wants back.

He hears a loud  _ thud  _ on his window that wakes him in panic.

He fell asleep with his phone still on him, screen down as it feels hot against his chest. Groaning he looks at the time on his phone, the harsh brightness of the screen makes him squint.  _ It’s 2:12 am, great.  _ He stumbles out of his bed, rubs his eyes as he peers through the window.

It’s Gavin.

He can hear him faintly, saying his name in a slurry sort of tune that reminds him a bit too much of his dad when he comes home late at night. Connor squints, making sure it’s not his imagination. His eyes aren’t playing tricks on him it’s  _ him _ , underneath a lamp post that's swarming with moths. He’s waving his arms, smiling for some odd reason. But it’s not the sort of smile that Gavin has when he’s truly happy, like in 3rd grade when they skipped to go out into the forest to pretend like pirates.

It feels like it was from another lifetime ago.

Connor opens his windows, hearing it and groan against him, dust falling, old cobwebs breaking as it reaches the middle. Something’s wedged deep in there, the window’s stuck.

“What are you doing here?” Connor says in a hushed yet loud voice. 

“Hey,” Gavin replies. “Why don’t you come down, huh? Come on Connor don’t be shy--”

“Stop talking! You’re gonna get me expelled.”

“Oh no,” Gavin pauses, sitting down on the grass and takes a swig of a bottle that Connor didn’t know he had. “Poor Connor getting expelled! What a shame it would be amirite? It--”

Connor’s worried, he hasn’t seen Gavin like this, drunk. He taps his fingertips against the window sill, maintaining a sort of rhythm that keeps him from relapsing back to Seattle, the loud crashes of the glass vase, a loud thud, him crying, the--

He clears his throat, “Please stop talking,” he says in a quieter tone. 

“Or what, what are you gonna do?” Gavin pauses and almost falls backwards, he steadies himself before continuing, “Kick me? Leave me behind--”

“What do you want me to do to stop you from talking,” Connor says. He steps back and looks around his room, wanting to yell and scream at Gavin, lash out, act like Gavin for just a moment. Maybe he should rewind, go back in time to all those years and beg and beg to his Dad to never leave Arcadia Bay and maybe stay as long as possible so that this would never have happened and—

“I want you to kiss me.”

Connor freezes for just a moment, but his reasonable side kicks in.  _ He’s drunk He’s drunk He’s drunk-- _

And yet…

Connor goes back to the window.

“You’re drunk Gavin.”

“I-I know, dipshit,” he pauses, then he suddenly bursts out laughing. Connor starts to panic, he needs to get to Gavin before he does something stupid or hurts himself as his Dad did. He quickly throws on a warm coat and shoes and slowly opens the door open. He hears a noise, talking inside the rooms, moaning and cheap sci-fi sound effects from a knockoff  _ Star Wars _ game.

  
As he creeps past an open door he prays to whatever god there is, that  _ nothing  _ is going to happen to Gavin for the few minutes that he’ll try to get to him, that just for  _ once, _ something can go right.

He starts to notice how loud his breathing is, he holds it for just a moment before he slowly turns the doorknob and heads out into the night.

8.

“Connor! I haven’t seen you since--”

“Shhh!”

Silence.

The sudden gust of cold wind blows past them. Connor crosses his arms in hopes to draw more heat to him, protect him from the cold and let him within quiet chirps of crickets, the distant calls of the birds and the stillness of the world. It’s like the world is on pause, silent, stopped. Arcadia bay is sleeping.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Connor says. 

“I’m fineeeeee Connorr,” Gavin chuckles, he takes a swig out of his beer, “don’t I look so good?”

“Can you go home? I’ll come with you I won’t leave you--”

“B-b-bring me back to that  _ fucking hell hole _ and I’ll wake up the whole school,” Gavin says. He makes it sound like a harmless joke, a funny joke that they tell each other that’ll keep them laughing for hours. But Connor doesn’t laugh, Gavin does, falling to the ground on the soft patch of grass and laughing while Connor helps him up and sees the pills on a tiny ziplock bag on the floor that Gavin dropped.

_ Drugs _

Gavin’s  _ drunk  _ and is on  _ drugs _ .

Gavin giggles, “I wanna do some batshit craaazy shit, Connor let me sneak into the school.”

He feels his blood run cold for just a moment before he goes back to reality, he relapses back to Seattle. His Dad never did drugs, only cheap beer from their shopping runs that he’ll secretly put into the cart without Connor looking. He always  _ knows  _ he’ll get them every trip. Connor doesn’t know whether to be grateful that he only did beer.

He lets Gavin lean against him, mumbling nonsense as Connor searches Gavin’s pockets for any pills. He looks at it, labelled  _ new shit, carefully Gavin _ written with a fading black marker. He throws it into the bushes, hoping that it David won’t find it and it’ll forever be hidden in the bushes. 

“Gavin can you give me your beer, please.”

“Shut up.”

He feels like he’s talking to a giant baby. He eases his tone, makes it soft and sweet as he makes up some excuse with Gavin. That he can do whatever he wants so long as he gives Connor the beer.

And he does, but Gavin runs away from him.

Connor throws it into the bushes and the growing headache comes back.

9.

This week is constantly changing him.

He’s usually fine with schedules, planning a timetable for himself to keep the day structured. Study for five hours, eat for thirty minutes or maybe rest for only three minutes. But this week throws it all out of the window, there isn’t any control for Connor anymore, the world took away his planning journals and neat little calendars hanging on his walls with his schedule to  _ strictly  _ follow. He doesn’t have any control anymore, it’s somehow  _ terrifying. _

His curiosity is all let loose, something that he usually shuts down and denies because it gets him in trouble. He has locked it inside in a cage, in a small, dark room, unable to peer through the world that’s so  _ alive  _ yet so  _ peaceful _

But it’s out now.

Because he’s _stupid_ enough to be curious to be hiding behind a bulletin board as he tries to hush Gavin, listening to the voices of Mr Zlakto and—

_ Leo Manfred _

Strange

_ “How much did it cost? _

_ “It’s fine, take it. My Dad’s entire painting collection can pay for a million of these” _

Connor peers closer, he watches Leo hand  _ something _ , he can’t tell what is it, too dark to make out.

“C-C-Connor,” he hears Gavin mumble. Connor grits his teeth as he covers Gavin’s mouth with his hand. He can’t let them get caught after curfew, especially in Gavin’s current state.

_ “Leo I know you’re excited but not-- _

_ “Here, no shit. It’ll be fine,” Leo turns around and looks around the campus, Connor pulls himself back behind the bulletin board, “it’s strong stuff.” _

_ “You still not gonna tell me where you get it?” _ _   
  
_

_ “It’s private, goodnight sir.” _

He hears a click of a tongue, followed by a couple of footsteps. Connor holds his breath, heart echoing inside his ears. 

_ 10. _

They didn’t get caught.

Connor sighs in relief.

There was a sort of strange thrill, a shot of adrenaline afterwards. Maybe Gavin’s habits and nature is rubbing on him too much. It felt like he was on a fine line, keep still and hold Gavin close to him. He’s still a blubbering idiot, adding to the headache that’s growing in Connor's head. On the other hand, Gavin looks peaceful, like he’s in absolute bliss.

Maybe Connor should try some, feel the world around him stop for just a moment while he catches up. Let go of  _ everything,  _ Seattle, his Dad, Gavin, everyone 

He shakes his head.

“Gavin,” he quietly says. He sees Gavin’s car on the parking lot, he doesn’t even want to  _ think  _ about the near-misses he had on the road, “stay close to me, let’s get you home.

“I’m not going to thaattttttt fucking,” he pauses, “hellllhole with step-douche still inside the house.”

“Gavin,” Connor reaches out, holding his hand, his finger, his pinkie. He’s too scared to dive in too deep, it’s crazy to compare it to holding a hand. But he shies away, holding onto his pinkie, “you’re drunk and high, let’s get you home.”

Gavin’s eyes linger on Connor’s for just a moment, but before it goes on for too long he pushes him away, breaking away from his hold. He screams into the night as he runs towards the entrance of Blackwell, lit up by two wall lamps. Connor runs towards him, he’s quicker, not drunk or high like Gavin.

But he hesitates on tackling him to the ground to silence him, or to come up behind him to cover his mouth. Connor stops running. He stops screaming into the night. Connor’s only a few meters away from him, he’s slow, he stumbles a lot, pausing or laughing at stupid things on the ground. He can force Gavin into the car and drive him back home, he can.

But he can't force himself to, because as he stares at Gavin make a fool out of himself, even though the worry grips on him all heavy and he’s drunk and high. He sees the younger version of Gavin, fearless and brave and hot-tempered and always the first one to take the first step, but he’s scared deep down, the guilt and pain and the sort of cliche sadness keeping hold of him. 

He notices that Gavin is more emotional than him, yet he doesn’t know how.

He grits his teeth, he won’t regret this now or in the next few hours, maybe even the next day. He’ll regret it later when the consequences are slowly becoming clear and he’s left thinking about how he relies on his stupid powers too much. It’s changing Connor, he can already feel his grades downgrade.

11.

They shouldn’t be doing this.

They  _ really  _ shouldn’t be doing this.

Both of them are breaking laws and rules, it’s not too late to turn back. They’re breaking into private property, could get fined and possibly to jail. He starts to panic even more as he watches Gavin’s shaky hands as he gets the key that he  _ drunkenly _ stole from his ‘step-douche’, apparently the head of security in Blackwell.

“Hey, hey,” Connor says quietly, he can’t bear to watch Gavin hold those keys for much longer, “let me do that, okay? I’ll give it back to you I promise.”

“fine,” he shoves them into Connor’s chest forcefully which sends Connor back, “youuuuu can have the stupid, fucking keys.”

His hands are shaky as he inserts it into the lock. He takes a second, just enough for him to think what’s he’s doing. It’ll be fine, just a quick peek in the principal’s office and both of them will be out. Easy, it won’t take long.

A quiet  _ click  _ carries itself throughout the quiet night

That’s it, he can’t go back now, no more second-guessing or hesitation, he’s knee-deep into the mess. Connor slowly opens the door, the squeak sounding like a mirror shattering a million times over in the silence of the night. He opens it just wide enough for Gavin, Connor ushers him inside before he pauses, looks around before he enters the building. He closes the door behind him, a small sigh of relief escapes from his shaky lips. But the worst part isn’t even done yet.

Gavin leans against Connor as they walk the hallways, randomly mumbling about his mum and ‘step-douche’. He lets himself tune out from Gavin and he realises his strange school is at night, it feels like a whole different world. There’s no one running the balls because they’re going to be late for their 1st-period classes or the little groups that form in the hallways, there’s none of that. It’s peaceful, quietly eerie. 

The useless sports banners hung up lazily from the corners to the posters about bullying to clubs and stupid sign up sheets that are littered all over the walls. It’s strange to see the school at this time, no one here but them. He gets out his phone for the flashlight, staring at the light reflecting from the vending machine. They reach the principal’s office at the other end of the hallway, written with bold red letters on a sign just above the door.

“Conorrr,” Gavin mumbles, “I’ve gotta tell you something reaaaaly impotent,” he giggles to himself, leaning more weight into Connor.

“Not right now Gavin,” Connor says. He cycles through the endless amount of keys, taking the slimmest one and inserting it into the lock. He turns the key,  _ locked.  _ He’ll be here for a while, he cycles through the next one, “I’m just a little busy at the moment Gavin why don’t you—“

“That loooooooks so cool,” Gavin mumbles, he stops

leaning against Connor and starts to stumble his way to the vending machine, “Connor looooook, aren’t vending machines so pretty?”

He takes a second to look over his shoulder to make sure that Gavin isn’t doing anything stupid. He’s mindlessly staring in awe at the vending machine, mouth open, letting his fingers skate across the logo of  _ Coca Cola.  _ Connor laughs, wondering what Gavin would think if he could see himself right now. 

12.

None of the keys works 

  
  


_ Great _

“Connoooooooor I need to tell you something.”

_ “ _ Not right now Gavin.”

He opens up his text messages, hoping that trust Chloe has some sort of trick up her sleeve. He can count on her, hopefully. He pauses, his thumb hovering over the letters. 

_ He can’t back down now _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: Hey Chloe _

_ Dumb bitch: I’m going to kill you Connor it’s midnight and you’re TEXTING ME when I was WORRIED about you when you just disappeared and went away with a strange guy and ran off. _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: I’m sorry, are u hurt? Are u okay? Did the police go after the guy who started shooting? _

_ Dumb bitch: the police questioned me, they blocked off the area. _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: hey Chloe _

_ Dumb bitch: oh no don’t you go and ask me a favour when you did that to me _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: do u know how to open a door when u don’t have a key and have access to the science room _

_ Dumb bitch: I’m going to kill you Connor Anderson _

13.

“Connoooor—“

“Not right now Gavin please.”

He’s not even paying attention to Gavin, he’s not hurting himself, he’s fine. Connor’s running on the curiosity at this point, the thrill that he’s somewhere that he isn’t supposed to be. Sneaking into the school in the middle of the night isn’t like him, but he’s changing, he doesn’t know if it’s for the better of the worse.

But who knew breaking the law could be so  _ fun _

Connor has all of his attention on the little tin can he’s holding right now (which Chloe describes as a  _ nuke).  _ He doesn’t want to mess this up or blow anything up in an accident, there are dangerous chemicals from the ingredient list that Chloe sent her. He puts his phone into his pockets, biting his lip as he hangs it on the doorknob. 

He can hear his heartbeat echoing loudly inside his ears.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

_ He shouldn’t be doing this _

** _He shouldn’t be doing this_ **

He strikes the match, the flame flickering, hissing. He sets the string on fire, watching the flame slowly eat up the string. Connor slowly backs away, finding Gavin’s wrists as he rightly holds it. 

“What’s happening?” 

His hands are shaky, clammy. There’s sweat forming on his forehead. He needs to get ready, rewind, use his powers. He needs to get ready to rewind as he watches the flame slowly inches closer and closer. Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe he should rewind now. Rewind before they broke into the school. Rewind before Connor goes outside his dorm. Rewind to the time where he didn’t hear Gavin outside because if he didn’t hear him he wouldn’t have come all this way outside just for—

A loud shattering  _ bang  _ that shakes the ground, the door swings wide open, the bomb leaving black powder along the ground. But he feels sick to his stomach, a hole growing inside and it’s spewing everything  _ out.  _ He can’t focus, he can’t rewind properly, nothing comes out as he holds his arms out and opens his hand. He feels the sprinklers going off, his clothes getting drenched, the deafening alarm ringing inside his ears along with the bright flashing red lights.

“Gavin! Gavin where are you!” He shouts, the hole inside his stomach grows, pulling everything in. He can’t see Gavin, he’s worried about him. He shouldn't have done this, he’s drunk and high and he can’t find him with his blurry vision. Connor starts to hear voices, loud as it pierced through the alarm. Cops, what will they think when they see them here. He doesn’t know, he’s so—

_ He’s so terrified. _

“Gavin!” He strains his voice, he wants to find him. He can’t lose him, not now, now after he only came back to Arcadia Bay. He wants to do  _ so  _ much more with him, he wants his childhood friend back. Connor feels so useless, so  _ weak _ . He only has his powers, nothing else, past it all is a meek photography student who always excelled due to the fear of failure.

“Please Gavin can you hear me!” He sobs out into the chaos, he starts to walk somewhere, wiping away any tears that fall as he brings his hand out, looking for Gavin. He feels someone, someone’s wrist. It’s  _ him _ , he found him.

They hear the doors break open. He quickly drags Gavin into the principal room, still holding onto his wrist, never letting go. Connor then holds his hand out, his head throbbing with pain as he rewinds, further into the past the better. The corners of his vision start to appear as edges of burning polaroids, fire wilting and burning away the last hope to fix the future.

And he does fix it, the silence settles back in and Connor welcomes it like a long lost friend. The door is closed in front of them, he can feel Gavin beside him in the darkness. He did it, he saved them. He feels light-headed after using his power, he leans against the wall and sighs. 

_ He did it _

14.

_ Dumb bitch: hey connor can u just please read this. _

_ Dumb bitch: please don’t do whatever i just texted you i don’t want to get hurt, okay? _

_ Dumb bitch: i really care about you and i dont want to get you hurt  _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: I was just curious _

_ Dumb bitch: I’m so worried abt u  _

_ connor? In my dm’s? It’s more likely than you think: let’s talk tmw, gtg _

He pockets his phone, turning on the priceless antique lamp in the office. It sputters to life, casting shadows across the room. Connor takes a deep breath, slow and steady, one step at a time. It’s a pattern that lets learned from Chloe when she first met him, a panic attack because he got lost in the winding hallways.

It seems silly now that he thinks about, how they’re friendship started just because Connor had a freakout.

Connor sits on the floor while he stares at the door at the other end of the room. All of this doesn’t feel real. Maybe all of this is just a dream, a nightmare, he imagines himself waking up at any moment, finding himself on his bed safe and sound. 

“Connor?” Gavin says, his tone is  _ different _ , softer, it isn’t slurry or slow anymore, it’s normal. He slowly approaches Connor, sitting next to him with a tiny gap between them. 

“I-I wanna tell you something,” he pauses, letting the silence fill the space between them, “I’m not fully drunk or high. I am, but I’m not  _ completely  _ wasted but I’ll probably forget all of this tomorrow.” 

Gavin shifts on his spot while Connor waits, looking at him as he fiddled with his shoelaces, “I argued with my Mum, drove all the way here for some reason to see  _ you  _ because I felt so alone, I saw your text, Connor. I thought that maybe I could find more clues or someshit about Tina,” Gavin looks at him in the eyes, he can still see the softness in Gavin’s eyes, those greyish eyes holding so  _ much.  _ Connor can’t believe he disappeared so long. If only he can rewind further back to change all of this.

“Because I feel like  _ something’s  _ going on in Arcadia, with the whole story that you told me. I feel like maybe all of  _ this  _ is connected somehow and I’ll find Tina, she wouldn’t leave me just like this.” 

Gavin sighs, he covers his face with his hands for a few seconds before it falls on his lap, “but of course, I’m a fuck up.”

“You’re not, Gavin,” Connor shakes his head, “you’re not a fuckup.”

Gavin dryly chuckles at him, it was half-hearted like there’s no more energy inside him. He then shakes his head, looking at the stain on the carpet, “I got drunk, and took a pill from Frank that’s apparently something  _ new  _ and bat shit crazy, and then I saw you through the windows, now here we are. Oh did I forgot to mention I’m a dropout?.” 

“You don’t have to apologise for anything I should be the one that’s—“

“No,” he shakes his head, “it’s my fault that I got you breaking private property and making a pipe bomb and then panicking because some alarm went off and then used your rewinding bullshit. I made you do something that isn’t you, ruined perfect little Connor, no offence by the way.

Connor smiles, “none taken, it’s fine. I deserve it, after

leaving you.” 

There’s a pause between them for five seconds, Gavin breaks the silence by standing up. He still doesn’t have his bearings, his balance is affected, need clouding his perception and thinking. Connor doesn’t want to think about the nasty hangover that’ll form on the morning. 

Gavin looks at him, “th-this is stupid we should get out of here, I’m an idiot.”

He puts his hand on the shelves that are filled with countless books that haven’t been read for years. Connor feels the dust on his fingertips as he lifts himself, standing in front of Gavin as he shakes his head.

“No, we're not leaving. There might be records or emails in here that’ll help with finding Tina.”

“Connor it’s fine“

He has to bite down on lip to stop from him holding onto wrist tightly again, to look at him in the eyes while he talks to him, to truly know how Connor wants to help Gavin. He wants to tightly hold his wrist and look at him in the eyes again, but he can’t. He awkwardly stands in front of him.

“Gavin, she replaced  _ me  _ when I wasn’t there. She’s a better person than I am, she sounds like an angel. S-she  _ deserves _ to see you again. I wanna help you. We can find her,” he walks around the room and opens on the drawers, “there are reports of her here surely. It’ll help you find her.”

While Connor digs through the countless files on the drawers, hoping to  _ find  _ something. Something useful instead of old newspapers and old books stuffed into the drawers. He pauses, looks at Gavin for just a moment. He can something in Gavin’s eyes that he hasn’t seen in a long time, a sort of spark of life. He hasn’t seen it since his 13th birthday when they were in the kitchen pretending to be drunk from one sip from the wine they found in the cabinet. They were laughing like stupid little kids, chasing each other around the house and playing pirates all afternoon. He can never forget that spark in his eyes, so bright against his greyish eyes that it makes him smile.

How he would trade  _ everything  _ in the world to turn everything back to normal.

15.

It hasn’t settled on Connor that what they’re doing is  _ extremely  _ illegal.

But still, Gavin’s swings around on the comfy yet tacky chit, waiting for the computer to restart over. They found the password, hidden away on a post note at the last drawer. They were lucky, Connor wouldn’t know what to do if they haven’t found the silly password, who uses  _ 123456 _ as password on the computer that holds important files on Blackwell academy. 

“I’ll let you know I find anything worth it Con.” 

Connor walks towards the cabinet that looks scratched and older than the rest of the room, the paint chipped off, the metal rusty. It squeaks open as he opens of the drawers, filing through the countless files.

“Right back at you Gavin.”

16.

_ Leo Manfred. _

_ GPA: 3.5 _

_ Leo Manfred is one of the best members of Blackwell Academy, often praised by teachers and students about his behaviour and his morals. Not only does he excel above and beyond grades with his grades in his subjects, but he also represents Blackwell Academy through many countless sports such as 100 and 200-meter sprints, long jump and shot put in athletic divisions. He also plays team sports such as football and basketball, with coaches praising his skill level and comparing it to pros, often taking him trophies and going to nationals. Leo Manfred is a proud member of Blackwell Academy and represents the school with a high standard. _

“Why are Leo’s records so clean?” Connor whispers to himself.

“Probably because he sucked everyone’s dick to seem

all nice and innocent, I’ve met him a couple of times he’s a massive weirdo and  _ obsessed  _ with a shot like photography and making robots alive,” Gavin says, “he’s weird, I know he’s hiding shit.”

_ Connor Anderson _

“Oh god.”

“What? Found something?” Gavin asks.

“No, I found my files.”

Gavin laughs, “lemme know if you find my files, I have a whole story and a half to tell you about that.”

_ GPA: 4 _

_ Although Connor Anderson shows great promise in his studies and always completes them at a high standard, sometimes even at a level expected at sophomore college student. He’s always described by students and teachers alike as a quiet student, withdrawn, not always participating in class discussions. He also is often described by his teachers as being “bipolar”, a reference to his energy levels, changing from day to day and often appearing in class looking tired or “out of it”. With a few changes, Connor Anderson might become one of the best students in Blackwell Academy. _

_ Gavin Reed (Student has been expelled from Blackwell Academy, see attached police reports) _

“Found yours.”

“Holy shit! lemme know if you find something good in there.”

“So you did go to Blackwell? Can’t believe that Gavin Reed used to go here.”

“Didn’t do much, this school’s a shit show anyway.”

_ GPA: 1.4 _

_ Despite receiving help from the school’s faculty and counsellors, Gavin Reed is still one of the most problematic students in Blackwell Academy. He often shows refusal in completing required work and often causes class disruption. He is also responsible for many fights in Blackwell and graffiti.  _

_ Gavin Reed shows a lot of potentials to reach heights in both academic and sports, but he often chooses to spend it on empty rebellion. _

19. _ . _

_ Tina Chen (Missing for a long period of time, see attached folders) _

“I found her files, do you… want me to take a picture or anything?” 

Gavin stops typing, “no, it’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he says, “it’s for the best.” 

_ GPA: 3.4 _

_ Tina Chen is a bright and bubbly student at Blackwell Academy. Although average on all her subjects, she excels heavily in performing arts and music. Her outgoing personality isn’t hard to miss and is often reflected in her playing of guitar and her acting. Recently, however, she’s been suspected of ‘hanging out with the wrong crowd’ which has slightly negatively impacted her studies. _

_ Despite all of this, she is still an important piece in the performing arts and music centre. _

20..

Connor sets the files onto the desk, staring at the countless trinkets and little decorations that are set up in the desk. Some of them are wooden, carved things like birds or bears. Others are just there to flash the budget, useless gold statues that look so pristine. All of this is just for show, he wonders what else is the principal is hiding underneath the nest little trophies or expensive desks. 

Connor walks behind Gavin, staring at the computer screen, “found anything?”

Gavin closes the tabs and opens up a whole bunch of them, email threads that are poorly hiding Leo’s chaotic behaviour, complaints from teachers, possible alcohol drug uses, possibly suspensions and expulsions. Leo has the principal under his fingers, using his Dad’s money that he got from stealing and selling his art to cover up anything and everything he does. He’s invincible, immune to anything that Connor or Gavin can throw at him. As long as he has money he’s in control. Connor grits his teeth, he should’ve seen this from a mile away.

“Coverups, complaints from teachers, fucking drugs in school properly,” Gavin says, he takes his phone out and begins to take photos of every single one, “that fucker, as long as he has money from stealing his daddy’s art he can do anything.”

“His school report looks so clean,” Connor mumbles. He picks up one of the files and skims through it quickly, he looks up at the screen again, “why is he doing this?” 

He looks over to Gavin, “you okay?”

Gavin clears his throat, but he pauses, staring at the monitor for a moment. He suddenly covers his mouth, gagging, his mouth probably full of bile and sick. Gavin quickly stands up, running out of the room as he slams the door. Connor follows him but stops at the doorway. Gavin’s bent over a bin in the hallways, retching as he holds onto the wall.

“You right?”

“Never been better,” he pauses, holding a hand up before continuing, “c-check if I-I missed anything.”

“Are you sure you’re fine?” Connor asks, he takes a step forward, “I have some pills at my dorm—“

“I’m fine,” he covers his mouth for a full second, “j-just give me a few minutes.”

  
  


23.

He’s worried about Gavin, it’s a nagging thought that keeps coming up every second as he searched through the piles of emails. Connor is sure this won’t take long, just a few minutes and he’ll help Gavin. Besides, Gavin wants to find Tina, a girl, someone who replaced Connor when he left him behind without a word. He wants to give Gavin the sense of relief, the spark of hope that Gavin is one step closer to seeing her again. He’s seen her through the photos, the one in the booths that are supposed to be silly and funny.

He saw it tucked away at Gavin’s bag in his room, hidden away from the rest and only for Gavin to see. They look so happy together, smiling and so carefree with the cute cat filters and sunglasses. There’s one of them where Gavin almost falls, with Tina only just saving him. She looks so happy with Gavin as well, her black hair just goes down to her shoulders, her red flannel shirt tucked into her black jeans. They look happy together, maybe Gavin deserves her more than him, he left to the big city while she stayed. 

And he Connor doesn’t think he can make up for the lost time. Too many years have passed, Connor wasn’t there when he lost his dad or the next few birthdays. He wasn’t there, guiding him through the sorrow and the grief. He knows how it feels like to lose someone, he lost his mum, she didn’t die.

She disappeared and never looked back, leaving behind an alcoholic who’s trying to fit into the role of a Father and a perfectionist who’s afraid of failure. Connor doesn’t blame him, he never does.

He sighs, pausing as he looks towards the hallway out of the door. Connor drums his fingers onto the smooth wood of the desk. He clicks open a file titled  _ Leo Manfred  _ it’s unmarked, purposely hidden away so that the secrets of Blackwell will never leak into the rest of Arcadia bay like an ugly oil spill.

It slowly loads. Connor leans back onto the chair, messaging his shoulders while he takes out his phone to check his messages. He slowly looks up, almost dropping his phone and letting it shatter into tiny shards of glass.

Connor sits up, putting his phone on the desk while he zooms closer. It’s a cryptic drawing, clearly done with a pen that’s slowly draining out of ink, taken in a hurry. All there is circles, dark shading and scribbles. Connor thinks he can even trace a face in the photo.

But he squints his eyes, he sees words forming.

_ “Tina Chen in the darkroom.” _

_ “Dark.” _

_ “Darker.” _

_ “Assembly room.” _

Written over

and over 

and over again throughout.

He suddenly feels sick, the urge to throw up is growing, he feels bile slowly come up. Connor quickly takes a photo and shuts it down, shutting down the computer as he stands up and walks away from the computer. 

“You okay?” Gavin alas, standing in the doorway. He looks at Connor, “you have the look that you found something, did you?”

Connor shakes his head, biting his tongue. He looks at the computer for a moment, “I looked through the spam email, nothing important except that Leo is getting coverup from the principal,” He says. He slowly digests the lie, it’s heavy in his throat, making it hard to breathe properly. 

“Let’s go,” Connor says, “I don’t wanna be here for too long.”

Gavin looks over to the computer then back at him again. He fiddled with his bullet necklace, smoothing out his  _ Detroit Fire Wankers  _ t-shirt. Gavin looks at Connor like he’s going to say something. The silence is drawn out, deafening, ringing inside his ears. The lie that feels so  _ heavy  _ is slowly burrowing its way in.

“Okay,” Gavin hums, “let's go.”

  
  


24.

Connor’s careful to not make any noise, he slowly closes the front entrance door, locking it as the click quietly echoes throughout the air. He looks at Gavin down the steps, sitting down with his legs close to his chest, his arm propped up on his knee. There’s churning inside his stomach, one that  _ doesn’t _ want to let Gavin drive all by himself. He’s probably coming down, drunk and still high. He sighs, staring at the sky for just a second.

_ In the darkroom… _

Connor quickly takes his eyes off the sea of the vacuum of space, distant stars acting like little islands in the ocean of darkness. He hesitantly goes down the steps, he doesn’t want to let Gavin go home all by himself, he’s worried about him. Maybe he can stretch this chaotic night just a little further.

“You done?” Gavin stands up, a cigarette between his lips. He drags his out and blows the rising smoke up into the air. Connor looks at him differently, staring at the cigarette for a second. Gavin notices him looking, he drops the cigarette onto the ground even though he wasn’t finished with it. He steps on it, watching the hot ashes inside slowly go out and fade into grey.

“Yeah,” Connor says, he fiddles with the strings of his coat, “I locked the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry I dragged you into my mess,” Gavin mumbles, “This night shouldn’t have happened, I made you break into private property and probably would've gotten your ass thrown in jail or someshit.”

“I’m lucky I have my power, Gavin.”

There’s a moment of pause between them, it's been happening a lot lately. Gavin clears his throat while Connor looks at the ground.

“I should probably go--”

“Don’t go,” Connor pleads. His voice sounds like Gavin back then, their very last day. He didn’t want him to go, to leave him in Arcadia bay all alone. Without Connor, Gavin would be nothing. Their little silly pirate names they made when they were nine wouldn’t hold anymore, it’ll disappear and be forgotten in their minds. Captain Reed the sinister and Connor the robot crewmate would be left in the dust.

Gavin turns around, “Connor--”

“I wanna show you something,” he says, “besides, what is there to lose in this shitty town?”

“Connor Anderson swearing?” Gavin jokes, gasping to dramatise the hell out of it, “I’m really influencing you hard dude,” he playfully punches Connor in the shoulder. He smiles, but he can’t get the harrowing thoughts in his head. 

  
  


25.

“Holy shit I forgot there was a swimming pool in this shitty school.”

A quiet  _ click  _ echoes inside the building. The flashlight from Connor’s phone finds weird things that are hiding in the darkness. The graffiti on the walls,  _ Gavin Reed was here _ , Gavin would leave a mark on things,  _ Taking a piss,  _ just above the toilet, great,  _ a drawn dick with a lot of details out into it _ , weird,  _ Tina Chen can suck my dick _ , oh wow that’s too much.

He makes sure to go behind Gavin, making sure that he’s just right behind him. Connor lets him take the pace, slow, looking around the walls with little graffitis, hung up posters that are close to falling off. He takes a permanent marker from his pocket, the cap between his teeth as he stares at the wall.

“Gavin, what are you doing?” Connor asks, he points the flashlight at the wall.

“Tagging shit,” he mumbles, he hovers the marker over the wall, “nothing new.”

“Do you do this everywhere you go?”

Gavin starts to write on the wall, “yeah I did, tagged the shit out of the little park before it burnt down.”

“There was a fire in Arcadia bay?”

Gavin stops his writing, looking at the ground as he clears his throat, “yeah, wildfire. Probably from arson.”

Gavin puts the lid back on after he’s done, he steps back, a grin on his face.

“ _ Fuck the otters,  _ really?”

They eventually reach the swimming pool. It’s dark, empty. Their footsteps echo with each step. Connor finds himself looking back, making sure that no one is following or finding out that they’re inside. He hears a sudden loud  _ thud,  _ seeing Gavin pull a switch near the door where they came from.

The lights are on in the pool. It looks like broken shards of glass on the ceiling, a beautiful myriad of blues, reflecting the only beautiful part of water and constantly moving, bathing everything in touches to a soft blue hue. It reminds him of the little toys that he gets, lighting it up and seeing all the planets and stars all on his walls. Maybe he can reach out, touch the beautiful fragments on the ceiling, watching it swim on his hands.

Gavin’s footsteps echo loudly, too loud. He comes up behind Connor, hand on his shoulder. Connor feels like he should say something, maybe stop this before it gets too out of hand and get Gavin hurt. He’s intoxicated, drugged. He looks like he’s doing better but Connor knows he’s feeling the crash pretty hard, it’ll be much worse in the morning. He’ll need to get Gavin pills, some for headaches and maybe some for vomiting. He can think of some later because all of his thoughts and worries disappear because of the sudden shove and--

He’s underwater.

His head is clear, no thoughts. The water is so clear and blue with the lights illuminating the water. It looks so magical, like the water you’ll find in the exotic island faraway in flyers with piercing blue oceans. Everything is going in slow motion, it’s fine for Connor. Bubbles rise to the surface and he sees Gavin underneath the water. He’s smiling,  _ actually smiling. _ It’s so sweet, so perfect.

  
Both of them comes up.

They look at each other for a moment. Gavin’s hair looks like a creature on his head while Connor’s perfect hair is wet and it’s making is hard for Connor to see. They giggle, then the giggles turn into hard laughter and now they’re splashing water at each other. There’s a sense of euphoria, freedom. Gone are the shackles and now they’ve snuck into the swimming pool and there are no thoughts inside Connor’s mind. Just absolute bliss and joy.

And their voices, their  _ stupid _ conversation about who’s more of a cry baby echo throughout the building. Filling up the building of their voice. It’s just them. Connor wants it to last forever. He wants to keep rewinding just so this can last forever. He wants just the two of them, with the euphoria and peace in the air. He wants to keep looking at Gavin’s face as he laughs then comes up to Connor to push his head into the water.

But he can’t, his power is limited.

_ And everything will end by the end of the week. _

It’s a nagging thought that pulls him out of the euphoria just a little bit. Let the thoughts in a trickle in and Gavin sees it. Connor isn’t splashing water back at him. 

“Hey,” Gavin says. He swims closer to Connor, “you okay there?”   
  
“Yeah,” Connor replies, “I’m fine.

26.

“Can I ask about Tina?”   
  
They’re just floating now. Doing the  _ starfish  _ which Connor named when they were in the swimming pool in the summer back ages ago. He still remembers it to this day, that distant childhood memory of him and Gavin. The sweltering heat and the hot, scorching sand that burned their feet when they ran to see who’s fastest. Then, there would be the taste of freezing sweet homemade watermelon fruit juice that Gavin’s mum made, the ice clinking in the clear red liquid. It’s kind of like this moment, except there’s no sand, and the sweltering heat is replaced with warm water in the pool. 

The silence is tense.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said anything--”   
  
“Tina was a sweet girl,” Gavin mumbles, “she was  _ everything _ . She was fucking badass, sweet and so talented. She does band and plays dope music, and does play and she’s damn good at it. I met her at this shoddy place in the mill near here, where a band burned down. I made some assholes mad, she saved me that night.”

“She seems awesome and sweet.”

“Yeah, she was,” Gavin says, “if she was here and met you, you two would get along so well. She’s pretty artistic.”

Connor looks at Gavin.

“I’m glad she replaced me.”

The file that he saw in the computer creeps upon him, the words echoing loudly inside his head. He can’t tell Gavin now, later when he’s all sobered up. Connor doesn’t know how he’ll act, maybe irrational, look for her and probably leave Arcadia Bay to search for her. He can’t let that happen, not now, later. Right now they can enjoy the silence before the chaos, the sort of peace that looms over them.

  
27.

Connor moves his hand just slightly.

The silence between them is so gentle, like midnight breezes in the summer. Both of them are out of the pool, just swirling the water with their legs. Connor is leaning on his arms while Gavin has his hands just beside him.

He looks at Gavin. The water dripping off his chest, the way that it curves down to his shorts. He looks like he works out a lot, or maybe just used all his anger to do boxing. That's what Gavin told him once they were kids, wanting to be a boxer. And when Connor asks why he always answers with an  _ I can use my anger to punch. It’s not that hard Connor! _

He ends up looking at his chest way too long.

He looks at the water instead. Bright blue, so pretty.  _ Stop looking at Gavin other you’ll get too— _

“Do you remember what you said back then?” Connor mumbles, too afraid to say it any louder. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Back at the school.”

Silence.

_ It’s so terrifying. _

Gavin sighs, he sighs, “I still can’t believe my best friend is a fucking time traveller,” he bumps Connor in the shoulder with his elbow, “you’re a fucking superhero.”

“I don’t know about that,” Connor says, he swirls the water in the pool with his feet, seeing the ripples stretch to the other end of the pool, “I have to be careful with my power, there’s still things restrictions and consequences.”

“But your power, it’s changing you, Connor. I can tell you’re not so chicken shit anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Connor, you refuse to do anything mean or even pull pranks and now? You snuck into the principal's office like a badass and get this—“ he looks at Connor, “used your time travel shit like a genius and you’re now in the swimming pool at like three in the morning with me.”

He looks at Gavin, he smiles at him. They’re both in this awkward moment, both staring at each other just a little too close. Connor wants to move, to shift his eyes just a little bit. But that’ll quickly break the moment between them, make it even more awkward and it’ll end in silence.

Connor smiles, he shifts his eyes just a little bit, “maybe it is changing me.”

  
  


28.

He’s helping Gavin up after he threw up in the pool. But a part of him is thinking as Gavin leans against him as they begin to turn off the lights, how he wants for Gavin to answer him. How he wishes that he got closer to him in the pool, just a meter and he’ll be looking into Gavin’s eyes. They’ll be close, they’ll awkwardly look at each other and there will be this awkward silence, but so many words will be spoken, thousands of it just through eye contact, the way you move or smile. Connor will smile shyly, and Gavin will look st him so deeply, he’ll let him get lost in his own soft brown eyes. It’ll just be a scene straight out of coming of age movie, something he always wanted but knows he’ll never have.

He sets Gavin down on the seat next to his shirt, he quickly throws it on while Connor puts on his hoodie and shirt. It’s uncomfortable, his pants sticking to his skin while his hoodie and shirt are completely dry. Connor heads to lever, pulling it down as a loud hum floats through the air. The light slowly begins to dim.

_ “I think somebody is in here.” _

Shit

Panic sets in. They’re going to get caught. They need to leave. They need to get out of here. He grips Gavin’s hand, too tight, afraid that he’ll suddenly lose him and Connor can never get him back. He hears the sighs, the moans from Gavin. But he can’t take care of him right now, they need to leave. 

29.

“You okay Gavin?”   
  


Gavin is catching his breath while Connor leans against the wall. The both of them are out of breath, Connor’s head hurts from having to rewind so much, the pain pulsating inside his head, the abyss crawling from the sides of his vision. He needs to breathe, settle his heart rate and think clearly. That’s what his Dad tells him,  _ breath slowly, in and out Connor _ .

“Great,” Gavin replies. He turns around and looks at Connor. Gavin doesn’t look good, the bags under his eyes are more prominent and he looks like he’s just stick and bones, exhausted from all the running. But despite it, Gavin laughs. Like the past five minutes didn’t phase Gavin. All the fear, all the tension in the stuffy air in the lockers didn’t get to him.

“Why are you laughing Gavin, you don’t look so good come on we need to get you home--”

“Because that was fucking awesome!” Gavin shouts, “We rock!”

Connor’s face turns a mix of worry about Gavin’s volume and also a sense of relief. The midnight air that smells of silence and calmness carries the feeling of euphoria. Connor smiles, and he realises it. The feeling of euphoria, the sudden  _ high _ from doing something so dangerous kicks in. It’s just them at the moment, just the two of them.

Just them and the night.

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

Gavin leans against him, like a protest against going back to his house. He grumbles. He starts to mumble nonsense to himself.

“You’re such a baby,” Connor says. He looks around, there isn’t anyone patrolling near them, they better take this chance and leave before they get caught. They stretched their luck far too wide, it’s going to break any second now. They quickly make their way to the parking lot.

Gavin’s car looks rusty, old. Just left out into the open and time peels off the paint, the rain that thunders onto the car bends the metal and turns it into rust. But it’s Gavin’s car no matter what. He sees the little graffiti that Gavin draws as he helps him into the car. The skulls, the little doodles and graffiti scribble into the car, even the necklace with a feather on it that hangs from the mirror or the letter in the glove box that’s scrunched up but written towards Connor or Tina. There are so many hidden things that say that it’s Gavin’s car.

He feels wrong like he shouldn’t be touching it. He quickly tucks it far into the glove box and closes it. Connor inserts the key, the engine sputters into life and they speed off away from Blackwell. Driving from all the problems and leaving them behind. It’s what Gavin wants. 

But Connor wants to do it too.

30.

If a year ago Connor tells his past self he would be doing all of this, his past self wouldn’t be believing him. Wouldn’t be believing that he broke into buildings (the school and the swimming pool, saw indications that somehow ties a missing person with a student, driving in the middle of the night with his childhood friend right beside him.

The ride is bumpy. Connor keeps apologising to Gavin when they hit little bumps and potholes on the road. He’s suddenly glad that his Dad made him learn how to drive for a week despite not having a license. Gavin reaches for the radio, groaning as he reaches for the knob. Nothing comes out except deafening static that scares Gavin.

“You should replace your old radio.”   
  
“Shut up,” he mutters, turning off the radio.

Gavin leans against the window, staring out into the silence of Arcadia bay. All the shops are closed, no lights inside, no neon signs blinking in the dark. All that illuminates the ghost town are scattered street lamps that are surrounded by moths. It’s weird to see Arcadia bay like this. Silent, still. The whole town is in slumber. Seattle wasn’t like this. The city was always alive, blinding lights, teenagers getting reckless as he watches from his window. But this, this is something that he misses even though he didn’t know.

Connor starts to hum a song, the lyrics playing inside his head. 

“Thank you, by the way,” Gavin says.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, he looks at Gavin for a moment.

“For driving me, I would’ve crashed this car if I drove.”

31.

The first few minutes of the morning was peaceful. The light filtering through the American flag which Gavin put up to stop anyone from peeking through his window. The sound of the suburbs, the lawnmower coughing into life, sounds of birds that always sings a song. It brings a sweet nostalgia back to Connor’s childhood. Him and Gavin playing pirates in the backyard, running around, getting dirty.

But it’s quickly interrupted by Gavin’s grumbling.

“I feel like shit.”

Connor turns to Gavin, his blue hair is turning into a purple-ish green. Probably from all the chlorine. He helps him sit up against the wall, he looks at Gavin full of worry.

32.

The cold tiled floor feels like it’s freezing his feet.

Gavin is sitting next to the toilet, heaving heavily as he looks at Connor. He takes a couple of pills from the drawer, making sure it’s the right ones. There’s a couple for painkillers and headache ones, it isn’t enough, but it’ll help Gavin throughout the day. 

“Here,” Connor says. He puts the pills to his hands and gives it to Gavin. He hesitates, before shoving into his mouth.

“Pass me the water.”

Connor gives him a bottle of water. Gavin downs it in three seconds. Connor feels awkward standing up, his eyes moving from one thing to another, the pirate towel that Gavin still owns, the blue hair dye sitting in the drawer. His eyes go back to Gavin. He isn’t heaving anymore, but he still looks exhausted as he leans against the wall.

He joins him on the floor.

His throat suddenly feels dry, his heart is beating too fast that he can hear it echo inside his ears. Gavin deserves to know what he found last night, but is it a good idea right now? How Leo is somehow tied to the disappearance of  _ Tina Chen _ , a rich jock that steals from his Father’s money by selling his paintings to cover up his tracks.

_ Tina in the darkroom _

_ Tina in the darkroom _

“I found something in the emails.”

Gavin’s eyes are locked onto him. Connor’s in the spotlight now. He clears his throat and stares at the one tile on the floor that’s cracked.

“It has something to do with,” Connor pauses, “Tina Chen.”

“You mean her files? School record?” Gavin says, he gets closer to Connor, “come on spit it out!”

“Leo drew a creepy photo but has words like  _ Tina in the darkroom _ .”

Silence.

Connor licks his lips, it’s out in the open now. He can’t take his words back now, can’t regurgitate back the words that he said. It’s there now, whether it’ll spill ugly like wine across the carpet or it’ll go down the drain.

“I don’t know anything yet maybe he’s just screwing around or—“

Gavin punches the wall with his bare first. Connor backs off, terrified at the hole in the wall and the blood dripping down his first. Connor holds his hands out, trying to calm Gavin down. He was always like this, fury always building, just like the time that Connor was getting bullied back in 3rd grade and Gavin punched the hell out of him.

But this time it’s  _ so  _ much different.

Silence

“Your hand is bleeding Gavin,” he looks through the drawers to find anything, bandages, first aid, “Gavin I—“

“No shit,” he yells, “I knew that fucker had to something with Tina. I thought it was only Frank through the fucking files I saw through step douche’s laptop.” Connor finds a tool of bandages, but nothing else. He hopes it’s enough to stop the bleeding but when he turns around, he's not there anymore. Connor rushes out of the door, holding the bandage so carefully like he’s afraid to watch or role doesn’t he stairs. Gavin is too quick, he’s already down the stairs while Connor is still at the top.

“Gavin please listen to me—“

“I don’t care right now we need to make that fucker  _ Leo _ and  _ Frank  _ spit out some answers.”

Connor’s down the stairs. Gavin is fumbling through his pockets, blood bleeding through his jeans. They’re still wearing their clothes from last night.

“Gavin?” Connor recognised that voice, it’s Joyce. She steps out of the kitchen and looks at both of them with wide eyes. He wants to stay a bit longer, look at their photos and talk to Joyce. She hasn’t seen in five years, too long for him.

“Connor? W-what is happening?” She asks. Gavin’s ‘ _ step-douche’  _ opens the garage door and walks into the mess.  _ Great _ . 

“What is happening?” He yells, Connor feels his eyes bury into him, “Gavin is this another one of your ‘friends’ in your—“

“I don’t have fucking time for your bullshit David!” Gavin snaps, all Connor can do is watch. He can’t do anything, Gavin is on pure rage, “talk to me after you fucking take down the surveillance cameras in the house and those weird fucking files about  _ Tina Chen.” _

Connor opens his mouth to speak, but there’s nothing that comes out of his mouth. No words to stop it all from growing too chaos, to stop the sudden yelling between Joyce and Gavin step-dad. But he doesn’t think he could’ve stopped anything even if he said  _ something. _

“Come on, we have to go,” Gavin insists. His eyes full of hope, the determination that he’ll find Tina Chen amidst Arcadia Bay. He knows Gavin, he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. He’ll go through the depths of hell to find her. He follows him outside, the yelling inside the house follows them until they reach the car and drive off.

32.

“Shit!” 

Gavin pulls over, the blood still dripping from his hands. The car halts to a stop and Gavin is pushed forward from the sudden halt. He clutches his hand close to him, banging the steering wheel with his other hand. Connor brings his hands out and slowly touches Gavin by the arm, wanting to take a look at it, see the damage and hopefully fix it.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” Gavin says to himself, he sighs and looks at Connor who’s getting staring at his bleeding hand, “hows the damage?”

Connor carefully turns his hand, looking for any signs of broken bones or any fractures. He gently applies pressure to his ring finger, Gavin curses. 

“You’re lucky,” Connor says. He is, he expected all broken bones from his fingers and him wearing a cast and sling for months on end which would drive Gavin crazy, “you didn’t damage much, try to not use your hand too much,” he gently balanced his bleeding hand, “I was worried about you, I thought you would have all broken fingers and maybe it would mean that you can’t use your hand any longer. It looks like you haven’t done anything serious but you’re still coming down and you might be more crazier and—“

“Ok nerd I get,” Gavin laughs, he lightly shoves Gavin as a joke, “I’ll be careful. I’m sorry.”

“You were fuming and probably just broke a five-year relationship just a while ago,” Connor says. He tucks the last bit of the bandage in, he turns Gavin’s hand to check for anything else.

“I shift easily, now hurry up we have to interrogate the shit out of Frank," Gavin says. He watches Connor turn his hand over a few times. Connor’s hand lingers for a bit too long, he hasn’t realised. It’s like he’s terrified that once he lets go of Gavin’s hand, he’ll bleed out and he’ll punch something much worse and he’ll be hurt and—

“Uh, you can let go of my hand now.”

“Sorry.” 

Connor hesitantly lets go. 

33.

“We’re here.”

“I should’ve been the one that—.”

“Did you want to crash, Gavin?.”

He lets Gavin lead the way, but making sure that he keeps looking at him, looking out for him. He’s coming down, hurt, tired and threw up this morning. Connor also can’t stop looking at his bandaged hands, it’s coming off, he should’ve tightened it, maybe if he had a paperclip in the car somewhere it wouldn’t be flapping everywhere. He sees Gavin bringing his hand close to him, undoing the bandages as he winces.

“There’s that fuckers trailer,” he mutters, it's tucked into the corner near the  _ Two whales diner.  _ Connor wonders if his mum still works at the diner, forever cleaning the tables while making mouth-watering pancakes with maple syrup drizzled on top, he used to have it back  _ then _ when his life was just about sleepovers at Gavin’s house and pancakes. 

Gavin goes up to the caravan’s door, trying to open it, “locked.”

Connor looks through the diner’s windows, seeing Frank at the one near the window. He can see his tattoos, his ugly hair and his face all from here. He looks back to Gavin, mumbling nonsense underneath his breath. There’s this awkward pause between them on figuring out what to do, just two teenagers out in Arcadia Bay in this somehow ever-growing mystery. He feels somehow silly; like they’re just suddenly playing detectives when they got tired of pirates back  _ then.  _ But now, it feels like there’s this unsettling fear inside him that  _ this  _ is going to turn true and grow into an amalgamation of dark truths. He hopes it’s wrong, it isn’t real, a lie.

“We'll deal with Leo’s punk ass lately, shit,” Gavin pauses, talking a few steps backwards as he looks at the trailers and the dodgy car park that’s littered with old rotting cars, amateurish graffiti on the walls and open garbage cans that’s left open to attract any sort of rodents. Gavin starts to roll the bandage to his hands, cursing under his breath.

“Frank’s inside the diner.”

“Great uh…” Gavin looks at Connor, “he has his keys so how about I distract him and fight him while you go and somehow get his keys while I’m fighting him and then you rewind and—“

“Gavin you're hurt.”

“I don’t give a shit, I want answers, Connor! Years I’ve been waiting and I just want to know,” Gavin yells.

“Gavin.”

“I just want to know  _ something.” _

Connor approaches Gavin slowly, he shakes his head, not wanting to say out loud  _ don’t touch me don’t even come near me _ , “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“Gavin?”

“I just wanna see her,” he turns his back to Connor, “I just wanna see Tina again.” 

“We will,” he says, voice lower, calmer. He slowly approaches Gavin, being mindful of the boundary and space that Gavin build-up that he’s slowly breaking into. He doesn’t want to break him, “we’ll find Tina. She’ll be safe.”

“What if she already left and we’re just being idiots,” he turns around, he’s close to breaking, tears threatening to fall and it’ll shatter everything inside Gavin, “we’re going on some stupid treasure hunt like we’re fucking pirates back  _ then _ ,” he points towards the caravan for a second before his arm slumps back into him, “what if she left? What if I’m wrong.”   
  
“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that she’ll never leave you, Gavin. She’s not  _ me, _ she’s waiting for us to find her.”

“Shut up.”

“Gavin please listen to me--”

“Don’t come close to me.”

“Gavin.”

“SHUT UP!”

For the next five seconds, the sounds of a small, comforting town swoop in to fill in the silence. Cars zooming past, not knowing the two childhood friends that are trying to fix the lost time between them. The turning heads of busy mums looking at them for a moment, wondering what’s going on before they go back to their phone calls. Even the sound from the Diner somehow bleeds through the walls, and the seagulls squawking in the car park before flying away.

Then it breaks apart in front of Connor, standing there, unavailable to doing  _ anything _ . Just another bystander in Gavin’s life, only to walk away from him. He knows that Gavin is coming down, that surely this isn’t him, he’s full of emotions crashing down hard. And it breaks him when Gavin bumps into him hard, and he thinks that he deserves it, perhaps a little bit more.

“It’s the wonder fucking twins, thought you’re being sneaky by breaking into my caravan.”

He turns around and sees Frank, a frown on his face. How did he get out of the diner so fast? He looks at Gavin, then back to Connor. Gavin doesn’t look like he’s fazed by all of this, he keeps walking away from Gavin. 

“Get the fuck out of my way Frank.”

Connor goes after him, reaching out to stop him from going any further. He’s just an inch away from grabbing Gavin’s hand, to pull him back to the senses and to stop acting like an idiot. He doesn’t get that chance, Gavin gets a heavy punch into his stomach which sends him down to the ground, coughing up blood as he heaves for oxygen. 

“You act so tough,” he says. Frank rolls Gavin over, he groans in reply, “but you’re just a little kid Gavin. What are you even doing here? Told you to not come here unless you’re paying.”

“Gavin—“

“You,” Frank points at Connor, he quickly takes a few steps backwards and starts to think of ways to get out of here, “quiet, lemme deal with him in peace.” 

Gavin crawls over to the caravan, leaning against it as he tries to stand up, holding on to the windows or the little lip near the back. But he falls back down to the ground, “fuck you, Frank.”

Connor has to stop this from happening, but before he can hold his arm out to rewind to stop it all from happening he suddenly feels a sharp, echoing pain inside his stomach. Frank’s fist twist as he pushes the punch deeper, feeling the pain inch deeper and deeper into him. He manages to keep standing, his hands covering his stomach as he walks away from him.

He can’t focus, he feels dizzy, sick. The back of his mouth starts to build up with more and more saliva and his vision slowly turns blurry. Connor brings his hand forward one more time to rewind, reality bends to his will for just a second before untangling and returning to normal, a hot burning sensation crawls over his arm as he winces in pain. He can’t rewind, he’s too hurt. 

He stumbles backwards, quickly regaining his balance as Frank laughs at him, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“N-nothing,” he sputters. Frank snickers, something  _ metal  _ glints in the sun in his pocket, maybe the blade of a knife. Connor needs to think, but his head is pulsating with pain, he can’t think.

“Bullshit, tell me now or your little shitty boyfriend will die,” Frank looks back to Gavin. He gives him menacing smile, he’s hoping he can’t stretch out the time here. Hopefully, someone already notices that they’re in danger, all he’s putting trust on is a random stranger or perhaps a cop.

“Please don’t do this,” he begs.

“You don’t know what—“

Frank suddenly falls to the ground in front of Connor. He reaches into his pocket, but she steps on his hands and gets a full spray of pepper spray. Seemingly random photos of him with a girl and some sort of tattered notebook titled  _ clients  _ fall alongside him.

“Chloe?”

“You owe me an explanation Connor Anderson, not now we need to go, get him inside the car and go.”

He quickly picks up the littered photos and notebook before coming towards Gavin. He helps him up, letting him lean against him as he helps him get into the car. Connor makes sure to keep looking behind him, watching Frank slowly get up as he rubs his eyes. He quickly gets in, the door closing as Chloe sits beside him. He puts his foot down on the pedal and drives away. 


	4. The Assembly Room/Rewind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this will be really quick bc i gtg so number one this has suicide! in! it i will add it to the tags so please be careful of that, this is starting to become darker bc we have one more chapter left!!!!!! woop
> 
> kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated

_ "Connor? You-your awake."  _

_ His vision is hazy, colours blending into an ugly mess. He doesn't know where he is, the lights above him blind him and his body aches.  _

_ “Gavin! Gavin where are you?” _

_ "He's here," a voice says, so soothing and soft, "can you look at me, Connor?"  _

_ He tries to. Trying to look for the voice in his shapeless vision, full of colours mixing and lines and shapes breaking down. But the thing he picked up, it's a Polaroid, he can see it somehow flickering, like it's burning. He carefully focuses on it, eyes straining.  _

_ Then he’s gone _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ he can see the tornado _

_ and Gavin _

_ but there’s Chloe too _

_ And— _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


1.

The flash blinds his eyes for a second. He’s back at the bathroom, taking a picture of the blue butterfly in the bathroom. He remembers this clearly, knowing each step that follows. Connor hopes that it isn’t true, he’s wrong, something  _ is  _ different this time.

His camera whirs out the photo, he shakes it. Connor remembers that. The butterfly flies away from him, watching it squeeze through the gap in the window. It’s gone, he didn’t want it to leave, he wanted it to stay because he  _ knows  _ what would happen. He feels this  _ pang _ , this panic in his chest as he blankly stares at the window into the outside.

It doesn’t look like the outside at all.

Connor quickly hides behind the stall, his heart echoing inside his ears, tears threatening to fall from his eyes to and drop to the floor. He puts his hand over his mouth to stop himself from making any noise, his body is shaking too.

_ Gavin— _

The door slams open, it feels like… he feels so  _ powerless _ .

“It’s cool Leo. You fucking own this school. You’re okay bro--”

The door slams open again, like the hammering down the nail, loud and vile, one more nail and it’ll be enough for the coffin.

“I hope that you checked the perimeter, as my step-shit would say.”

_ Please don’t say that— _

“Now let's talk business, or is the rich boy that steals paintings from his sugar daddy too scared to talk?”

_ Stop talking— _

“Shut the fuck up,” shoes squeak against the tile floors, “you stupid fucking  _ cunt _ . Or are you gonna cry to your dead fucking dad about it.”

_ Please just stop _ \--

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

_ Stop-- _

“What the fuck are you gonna do to me? Gavin Reed? Get high?” A loud  _ thud  _ hauntingly echoes throughout the bathroom, Connor thought it was the gun going off, the bullet going deep into Gavin’s chest. He’ll bleed out soon if he doesn’t do something in the next ten seconds, he’ll die.

_ He’ll _

“Shut the fuck up--”

He comes out hiding and reaches out. He remembers this moment clearly, it's ingrained into his memories  _ forever  _ to haunt him for years on end.

This time there are tears in his eyes, stinging so much that he blinks to get rid of it. 

This time his hands are shaky, terrified.

This time his whole body is shaking, his legs feel like it’s about to collapse, to give up. It does after a moment, Connor’s on the ground, hand still reaching out, afraid that time won’t go his way and Gavin would be dead. He’ll think that Connor hated him, he wouldn’t know about the midnight swimming session that they had in Blackwell. He won’t know all of  _ it _ .

But he notices something.

Nothing is moving, not Gavin that has Leo pinned against the door with a gun pointing at Gavin's chest. Everything is still. Time is frozen. The edges of his vision look like the edge of a polaroid burning away, the plastic melting, the charring starting to occur. Connor stands up, leaning against the wall to help himself as he reaches into his pocket. He saved Gavin, he saved him for the 100th time this week. 

There’s a photo, not like a polaroid. The light reflects off the creases, his finger skating against the face of Gavin smiling at some sort of concert, with Tina leaning against him chuckling. They look so happy together with their little studs and band t-shirts.

Connor didn’t have enough time to look at Gavin a second time, to look at him and maybe hug him, whisper so many  _ sorries  _ while he collapses onto his frozen self. Time is still, he could have said  _ everything  _ he wanted to say to Gavin, he could do whatever he wanted.

But time is cruel, one glance at the photo and he suddenly disappears. 

2.

Time is frozen too, there's a sort of barrier, go too far and he'll be enveloped by a wall of distant memories, all blending as it burns by light leaks like the ones in dark rooms. This isn't his memory, this is Gavin's memory. Connor's so far away, he's at the very edge of the crowd. But he can see Gavin in the sea of ravers and hippies, he can see him  _ smiling. _

He looks so happy.

  
It’s Gavin’s scene, in a concert with some sort of famous band playing at the front. They’re both so close to the front, just a few steps forward and they’ll touch the wood of the stage, feel the stage shake beneath their fingers. It’s the cliche sort of rock concert, dark, colourful lights blinding the audience, special effects shooting out of the stage.

But it’s so quiet.

“Gavin--”

Connor quickly gets pulled away with the photo in his hand.

3.

Time is still frozen.

Raindrops still in the midair, the thundering clouds above him and there’s the scent of the smell of rain that somehow smells nice. He’s at the abandoned junkyard, the soil under his feet is wet and there’s already deep puddles that formed. Bits of mud sticks to his sneakers as he looks around, finding, looking, looking for Gavin to be at peace. It’s his memories, it feels like he’s intruding on something so gentle, a secret that wasn’t for him to see, a diary entry about a stupid crush or like someone whispering into his ear about who won a fight.

He finds him. He looks at him. He wants to be  _ there _ .

Be there with him, maybe just besides Tina taking a picture of Gavin covering his head with a sheet of metal as they run to find shelter. Connor would be shouting at Tina, talking about the water damage to the camera. Tina won’t care, Gavin would just tell him to shut up. He wants to be there, to run in the rain with him, laughing themselves silly. Connor wouldn’t care about the next maths test tomorrow at that moment, he wouldn’t be following his schedule that he would normally be so strict about.

Connor would be so free.

He never should’ve left. He shouldn’t have left in him in the funeral, he should have stayed there, even if it’s just a bit longer, or maybe forever, Connor would be holding his hand besides Gavin’s Mum, he won’t say anything, the both of them know that the hand is enough, do too much and he’ll break apart.

He never should’ve walked away. He shouldn’t have stepped away from Gavin, watching him from afar as tears fell down his cheeks. Instead, he would run towards Gavin, he doesn’t care that they would be late for the movers at Seattle. He wants to stay, to be there for Gavin. 

_ Connor shouldn’t have stepped onto the car _ .

He runs towards them, reaching out, tears stinging his eyes.

But the universe is so  _ cruel _ .

4.

He sees Gavin.

But he’s  _ so  _ far away, he’s slowly getting used to the distance between them. The universe is so  _ cruel  _ to put them apart, Connor is standing in front of the school while Gavin’s at the stairs with Tina. Connor wants to start time, to let it tick so he can  _ hear  _ his voice, his joy around her. She was there when he wasn’t, letting Gavin lean against her when Connor left him in this cold corner, the edge of this world.

They're looking at each other, smiling. With Gavin taking a photo of her this time, blocking the camera with her hands. He looks around him, there's barely anyone here, it's lonely here except for them. It looks like he's just dropping her off school, so innocent and so  _ peaceful _ .

Connor reaches out, his hand opening, his breath steady. He needs to relax, to focus, let time string out while he can only watch from afar. But his head starts to hurt, there’s his sort of light that blinds his eyes and--

5.

“Dad I wanna take a peek--”

“Give me a minute, just go and play with Connor while I let this develop.”

Connor’s eyes widen, looking around the kitchen,  _ Gavin’s kitchen _ . But it's different than he remembered, it's altered, there are pictures of Gavin's dad pinned up on the wall with those cheap fridge magnets that look like tiny little fruits. There's a mess on the counter, eggs, flour all over the bench and the floor and the bowl still has some batter inside it. 

_ It’s like a silly little morning that he and Gavin used to have. _

"I hope the flash didn't scare you, Connor," he says. He feels  _ something  _ inside him quickly swelling, threatening to burst like a balloon. He can hear his voice. He’s  _ alive,  _ right in front of him, smiling while he shakes the polaroid in his hand. 

“It didn’t,” Connor says, looking at the floor, voice just a little higher than a whisper. He’s going to break, he’s going to cry right here if he isn’t careful. He can’t cry, right now. He’s cried too much throughout this week, it’s too much.

“Dude,” Gavin says, nudging him on the shoulder, “you’re killing this awesome photo moment!” He leans down and looks at Connor, “stop being such a downer--”

“I’m not being a downer, I’m just… I just...”

_ Want to fix what I did to you. _

_ I want to save him. _

“Tired,” he says, forcing a weak smile as he looks up. Gavin buys it, laughing as he grabs the polaroid off his Dad’s hand. But his Dad looks at him for a second, eyes locking, it feels like he knew what Connor is thinking, peering through his shroudy eyes and peering into his inner thoughts. He’ll know that’ll die, he’ll die after he gets a call--   
  


His phone rings.

He rummages through his pocket.

And he answers.

He remembers this exact moment, another one of those unforgettable moments that’s forever stuck in his brain, making himself drown in guilt and regrets, the  _ if he could _ ’s or the  _ what ifs _ . He can do that, he can change the future by doing something so simple, a simple action, like a flap of a butterfly can cause an entire tornado in--

“Hello? Hey sweetheart,” Connor follows him with his eyes, watching him so closely. Walking towards the living room, rummaging through the pillows on the sofa and looking underneath the coffee table, “yeah, just give me a minute.”

“Hello?” Gavin waves his hand in front of his eyes, “Connor Anderson, you’re so  _ weird _ .”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, feeling his heart beat faster, his breath growing shallower. Everything is so carefree, the atmosphere  _ should  _ bring back so  _ many  _ nostalgic memories, radio playing in the living room as it echoes throughout the house, the smell of pancakes cooking on the pan that maybe burning and the sunlight streaming through the window outside, landing just in front of the fireplace. 

But he’s so tense, hoping that he won’t find the key.

“Dude look!” Gavin walks in front of him, holding the polaroid in front of him as he stares at it in awe. He takes a glance, it’s him and Gavin smiling, such a simple photo, so  _ innocent _ . Connor wants it all back, “this is totally a keeper!”

“Where the hell are my keys?” He says, his phone pressed against his ear as he keeps it there with his shoulder, he reaches into his pocket, pressing some sort of remote as he walks around the living room, “this stupid  _ fucking  _ thing better find it--”

“That’s a dollar for the swear jar!” Gavin says, sitting on top of the table. Connor looks to the right, the jar is still there, the paper poorly pasted at the front, quickly written  _ Swear Jar  _ right at the middle. He remembers the two of them making it, writing it while giggling, putting it into the kitchen and hoping that no one won’t notice it.

His dad laughs, “You mean your college funds!”

_ Please don’t find it _ \--

A quiet beep from underneath the sofa echoes throughout the room. Connor feels his heart break.

It hurts.

He watches him reach for his keys under, squirming. 

“I’ll be there in a second, no wine tasting for both of you or your grounded Gavin.”

Gavin groans. He walks away. Connor follows him with his eyes. He disappears into the mess of memories, the photos blending, burning away as it reappears again. He's stuck, his feet are frozen on the floor and all he could do is watch-- 

Then he’s gone.

“Dude, dude,” Gavin says, he comes up to Connor, putting his around him as he guides him towards the living room, “I have something to show you upstairs.”   
  
_ I’m sorry William. _

There are tears in his eyes. 

Gavin starts to drag him up the stairs, "so someone at school has this cool set of cards, dude, you're not even paying attention…" 

_ I’m so sorry _

His eyes are still trained towards where the front door should be.

He isn’t looking at Gavin. 

“Hey,” Gavin hums, “you okay dude, are you crying?”

Connor reaches his hands out, palm open, tears streaming down his face. 

Turn back time.

_ Save him _

“Connor--”

He hugs Gavin tightly, with the fear that he’ll suddenly disappear into thin air if he doesn’t hug him tight enough. Connor doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to let this moment end. He wants to stay in the kitchen forever, to not let this moment burn away like those wasted polaroids. He wants to stay here, with the afternoon light streaming through the window, the smell of pancakes in the air, the calmness, the  _ innocence _ .

He wants it all  _ back _ .

  
“I did it…”

“Dude chill out--”

Connor smiles, hugging him tighter, Gavin winces, “I Did it!”

7.

He opens his eyes, staring at his hand. He did it.

_ He saved him _

Connor stands up, looking around his dorm room. It’s different, altered. It’s like he has a new personality, maybe from going back to the past and changing timelines. This isn’t like him, there isn’t the polaroid strung up on the wall beside his bed, it’s replaced by a  _ Pisshead  _ poster with skulls and knives and blood. His guitar is replaced with an electric one, the plant in the corner isn’t there and his camera is…

Gone

He walks towards the desk where his camera normally should, maybe this is a price he has to pay, an exchange to keep William alive. But his polaroid camera is replaced by a report card, scrunched up into a ball while he stares at himself in the mirror.

Connor looks like a punk star. 

His room looks like he belongs to a punk star, everything is so black and bold and striking.

_ He is a punk star _ .

Connor stares at his dyed blue hair for a moment before looking at his report card, the creases, the skulls on the corners and the drawn middle finger isn’t like him. So is the grades, all F’s, failed every  _ single  _ one of his subjects. He’s not like this, he has a perfect schedule which is fit for him, he usually has all  _ A’s  _ and spends every single  _ night  _ studying because he’s so afraid of failure--

  
But yet…

He reaches for his journal where he normally keeps it, normally full of long recounts of his day, a couple of sketches and some random bits and pieces pasted along the edges of the paper. Connor does it to cherish every  _ single  _ moment, to maybe flick through the pages and look at the past, to steady himself every day.

Connor pulls out a drawer from his desk.

It’s not there.

His phone rings, he pulls it out.

_ Mum: Connor I don’t think that Blackwell Academy is good for you… we’re worried about you, you’ve been slacking off.  _

_ Mum: We’ll come by next week to help you pack your things, maybe you’re just homesick. _

_ Mum: Come back home, Connor, come back to Seattle. _

He turns off his phone.

8.

“Hello?”

“Gavin,” he says, he pauses, hesitating, ”hey.”

9.

Connor steps closer to the front door. He’s terrified, he doesn’t know what he changed. He doesn’t have Chloe in his contacts, he hasn’t seen her on campus. There’s the sense of  _ something  _ churning in his stomach again, threatening to explode right in front of him. His hands feel clammy, feeling like he has to hold  _ something _ to calm his nerves.

_ Me: I’m here _

The door swings open, Gavin's right in front of him. He wants to hug him, he looks like he's been through hell and back, but he saved William, he should be fine. Gavin shouldn't be in sweatpants or a jacket with the hood up, he shouldn't have those bags under his eyes and he shouldn't look so frail and so tired. 

_ He should be a punk star  _

What else did he change?

“You look like a punk star,” Gavin comments, his voice bland, tired, there isn’t the sarcasm or the  _ bite  _ to it that Connor has grown used to, “what else changed when I haven’t seen you in so long Connor Anderson?”

"I…" Connor pauses, looking at his feet, looking at the gap between them, he wants to hold Gavin tight, but he can't, "I don't know, " he looks up, weakly smiling, "I thought you wouldn't answer me." 

  
“You left me, I hated you. But I don’t have the energy anymore to hate you.  _ I don’t care anymore _ .”

The last few words he said just then rings inside his head, he feels the sting inside him grow, the pain echoing and going straight to his heart. Gavin isn’t like this, he’s  _ angry  _ at the world, he’s a punk star, he’s aggressive and sometimes mean and uses his anger to make a barrier between him and the world.

But right in front of him, Gavin is just bare-bones, nothing left, an empty shell of what he once  _ used  _ to be, a ghost wandering through breaking town. 

“Can I come in?”

Gavin stays silent for a moment, he doesn't blame him, Connor just shows up out of nowhere after disappearing for a long time. He should hate him, he shouldn't let him inside the house. The silence is still there after five seconds, it's slowly being filled with the sounds of a dog barking, children playing and laughing in their own backyard and the distant cars driving by. It's these sounds that make him miss his Dad. 

He looks at Connor for a moment, eyes lingering just a little too long.

“Okay,” he nods, he puts his hands into his pockets and turns his back to Connor, “come in.”

He closes the door behind him, the quiet  _ thud  _ fills the lonely silence in the house. There isn’t the smell of pancakes wafting in from the kitchen or Gavin’s mum welcoming him or Gavin’s  _ ‘step-douche’  _ telling him to fuck off. It isn’t here anymore, this is a different life, a different house. But it feels somehow  _ worse _ , darker, lonelier, quieter.

It's messy, dishes piling high onto the sink and there's this musty smell of Chinese take-outs and pizzas that probably should be taken out. Connor gets closer to the living room, clothes lying on the ground, bowls and potato chips scattered across the floor. The TV is still on, some type of rom-com, but the smell of cheap beer is starting to get stronger. 

He walks over to the TV to shut it off.

Connor sees Gavin’s Dad laying on the sofa sleeping, still in pajamas, cans of beer on the floor, a beer gut forming that he knows too well from his own Dad. This isn’t right, William is supposed to be the silly cool Father that lets Connor sleepover any time he wants, he  _ should  _ be finishing the paint on the walls, he should be laughing with a smile and he should be so  _ happy _ .

But he isn’t.

_ What else did he change? _

"Come on," Gavin says, it pulls him from his thoughts as he looks at Gavin's eyes like he just… doesn't care anymore, no life, no anger, all  _ gone _ . He nods, walking away from William because he feels like he might cry if he stays any longer. But Connor shouldn’t leave the curtains closed, he draws each one, sunlight piercing through the darkness, it isn’t enough, it’ll never be enough. He opens the one in the kitchen. He opens the one near the living room. He opens every  _ single  _ one.

“What are you doing?”   
  


Connor pauses, throat feeling dry, his eyes begin to sting. He holds onto the curtains, fabric twisting, knuckles going white. He wants to say  _ everything _ , to let the secrets that he’s been hiding from him, he wants it  _ out _ . It hurts too much, he can’t handle this, he got more than he wanted and now it’s spilling ugly and making Connor break with  _ every  _ single step.

“Nothing,” he says, he quickly wipes away the tears and opens the blinds, “nothing. I just thought the house was dark.”

“Mum would normally do that,” he pauses, tone quieter, but he quickly reigns himself in and the window of vulnerability, an open window into Gavin’s thoughts, the moment is  _ gone _ , "but… she's… not here..." 

Connor turns around, “is she at work? At the Two Whales Diner.”

Gavin slowly nods. But there’s something  _ strange  _ about it.

  
  


10.

Connor can’t help but notice that there aren't any photos up.

None. The cute collage of photos near the front door isn't there, the photos hung up on the walls in the living room or the framed ones in the hallway are gone. Connor can't help but stare at the blank wall when they walk up the stairs, hoping that the photo of Arcadia Bay will appear there or the shelf to be there with random books that no one ever reads. 

But the photo isn’t there.

The shelf isn’t even  _ there _ .

There’s no decor on the walls or any photos of Gavin or His Dad or his  _ Mum _ , no childhood photos, no silly little birthday photos of him and Gavin. It’s empty, sparse. Just an empty shell, there’s no life or personality inside. It’s just a house, filled with stacking dishes and take out that scatters across the floor. 

“When is she gonna come home?” Connor asks.

Gavin doesn’t answer.

The door to his bedroom opens, squeaking as it reveals the pile of clothes on the floor. He follows Gavin in, shutting the door behind him. The silence is back again, shrouding the bedroom with this heavy feeling of  _ guilt  _ and  _ loneliness _ that’s choking Connor. He’s drowning in it, yet Gavin’s perfectly fine.

But the more and more he looks around, the more Connor wants to cry.

No flag hung up on the window to stop the sunlight from getting through the window, it’s replaced by a blanket.

No band posters poorly pasted on the walls.

No cheap Christmas lights. 

No photos.

  
No skateboard.

No plant.

No mirror.

No pirate hat. 

Nothing.

_ This isn’t him _

It’s just the bare white walls staring back at Connor. A mattress on the floor with piles and piles of blankets on top that probably hasn’t been changed in a while. The floor is scattered with takeout boxes, clothes, crumbs from potato chips. This isn’t a mess that Gavin would make, the floor is the only thing that fills up his room. It’s just lonely, void of sunlight from the drawn curtains, quiet.

Gavin's eyes linger on him for a moment as he looks around the room, his mouth opens just slightly like he wants to  _ say  _ something, a secret that will forever break both of them. 

  
But he closes his mouth.

And looks at the floor.

“Not the way you remembered it?” Gavin says, breaking the silence that felt so overpowering and tense. Connor turns around, opening his mouth to speak, to say something. 

“I…” Connor pauses, “no, it isn’t.”   
  


“You don’t look like the Connor I knew when we were kids.”

Connor chuckles, it fills the room and he drags it out as long as possible, not wanting the silence back again. He looks at his heavy boots, the black denim jeans that he has on with too many rips for him and the metal chains that hang from his pockets. He hasn’t even seen the shirt he has on or the jacket on top, it’s rather heavy.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m due for a style change,” Connor says.

Gavin sits on his bed, Connor sees a smile forming, just a tiny one. He wonders the last time when Gavin smiled. Was it when they found their _ ‘pirate treasure’ _ that they found, a silly little box full of trinkets that they made when they were just eight? Finding the box and seeing a little message from his Dad, drinking apple juice being so carefree at just 13?

Connor sits next to him, he looks at the tattoos on his arms and the spiked bracelets has on.

“You remind me of  _ Tina Chen _ .”

He feels the ground beneath him disappear for just a second.

“You know her?”

"I don't… she disappeared a while ago she was a hard punk star who went on concerts and shit," Gavin bitterly laughs, "you two would have been absolute best friends." 

“Yeah, we would have. But I prefer to be your  _ best friend _ .”

Silence.   
  


“I don’t think we can go back to the way we were.”

“We can still try.”   
  


“There’s no hope.”

They stop talking for a while, leaving it like that. It's  _ strange _ , to be sitting in Gavin’s bedroom, expecting the loud music blasting as it seeps through the thin walls and into the hallway outside his door, the weird smell of weed in the air and the band posters up on the walls. But it’s not here, it’s all gone.

_ He wants it back _ .

“I’m sorry,” Connor says, he looks at the gap between them. He wants to move closer to him, just an inch closer is enough. He wants to hug him tight and never let go, to cry into his shoulder and whisper so many  _ sorries  _ that it’s enough to overpower the guilt and the loneliness in the house and replace it all with  _ sorries _ .

But he doesn’t move closer to him, Gavin doesn’t feel like a long lost friend in this life. He feels like another stranger, a human being amidst the millions of people on Earth. 

It scares him.

“You’re too late for that,” Gavin says.

11.

Neither of them has spoken for five minutes. They've just been awkwardly sitting on the bed, thoughts loud in their minds. Connor did move closer, but it isn't enough, it'll never be  _ enough _ . This is all his fault, why Gavin acts like this, he shouldn’t have messed with time travel and timelines.

“Do you know a girl named Chloe Kamski?” He asks, half curious on what she’s up too, she isn’t on his contacts, half wanting to break the silence between them.

“She died.”

Silence

He looks away from Gavin, staring at the floor beside his left foot where a snickers bar wrapper is. He can’t face Gavin right now, he feels himself breaking. She can’t be, she was just saving him and Gavin from his drug dealer a while ago. A month ago he was crying on the phone with her because he was behind schedule, terrified of falling into the pit of  _ failure _ . They were friends, she saved him, she was there for him. She--

"She committed suicide a week ago," Gavin says, Connor bites his lower lip, "jumped off the top of the dorm building. She was lonely, didn't have enough to talk to, no friends,  _ no one _ . Now Blackwell is shutting down because of the suicide, some shit about student safety.”

_ Chloe’s dead… _

Connor stares at him, just for a moment, it looks like Gavin was going to say something. His eyes look so… lost, empty and so  _ ghostly _ . It’s not like Connor’s, he’s close to breaking down and crying right here in Gavin’s bedroom, only a couple of loose promises keeping him together. He wants to hold his hand, he wants to lean against him while Connor breaks down. He needs comfort, but he’s more broken than him.

And it’s all caused by himself.

“I need to go to the toilet,” Connor says too quickly. He stands up too quickly. He closes the door too quickly. He left him too quickly.

11.

_ Young eighteen-year-old Blackwell student Chloe Kamski, who was full of light and studied photography and visual arts committed suicide on top of the dorm building. Police and the are now speculating that the cause of her death was bullying, but the other students at Blackwell Academy say that the student was often "lonely, tired and an outsider." Authorities are now questioning--  _

He drops his phone to the floor.

The screen shatters.

12.

_ “Connor!”  _

_ “Chloe! I can’t I have exams--” _

_ "It's not for another two weeks! Come on, it'll be a quick five-minute walk, you're like exhausting yourself."  _

_ “I’m not tired.” _ _   
  
_

_ “You are, I’m dragging you out of here.” _

_ “Hey wait--” _

She’s dead…

He met her when he was terrified and afraid, lost. A panic attack. She was there. She helped him. Chloe’s so carefree, gentle and so  _ kind  _ all the time. They were friends, a friend that he hasn’t had in a while, a friend that took Gavin’s spot. She helped him up, she was making sure he didn’t die studying even though he hated that Chloe would drag him out of the dorms and make him walk.

She would be laughing.

Smiling.

Dragging Connor by the hand.

  
_ How can she kill herself? _

Connor doesn’t look at himself, he can’t handle that right now. His hands grip the edge of the sink, tighter, knuckles going white, teeth clenching. He can’t cry, he shouldn’t cry. He’s Connor Anderson, son of Hank Anderson, a retired lieutenant from the DPD who solved the red ice case. He’s strong, he’s a  _ boy _ , a grade  _ A  _ student,  _ top  _ of the class.

He shouldn’t cry.

But he does quietly fall apart.

Tears falling to the floor, head down, his body shaking, hand to his mouth to silence his broken sobs. It's all because of  _ himself _ , it’s all his  _ fault _ . He shouldn't have messed with time travel, he shouldn't have picked up the Polaroid from Gavin's pocket, he shouldn't have all of  _ this _ . Now Gavin is just an empty shell of what he once was, the colour from all of the town is draining away from the death of Chloe and the house is slowly crumbling down

The sobs escape his shaky hands and it echoes ugly in the bathroom walls. He collapses to the floor next to his smashed phone. He can’t stop the tears, he can  _ never  _ stop them from stinging his eyes even though it hurts so  _ much _ , he wants the pain to stop, he wants the shaking to stop and he wants to go  _ back _ to his timeline.

A loud  _ bang _ echoes throughout the house.

He looks up, feeling the house rattle as he slowly stands up, wiping away his damp tears. What was that noise? It sounded muted like  _ they  _ didn’t want it to seep through the thin walls, didn’t want it to be heard. He clears his throat, wiping away the snot from his runny nose.

He quietly opens the door, the creaking fills the silence, “Gavin?” He says, voice still a little shaky. The door to his bedroom is still closed, but there’s this unsettling quietness that overpowers the lonely stillness in the air. He feels this sort of  _ dread  _ on his shoulder.

The door swings open.

13.

_ He doesn’t know where Gavin is leading him, the streets slowly start to fade away and the trees start to sway in the cool breeze. They keep going up, his feet hurt from walking up and the sun is beating down on them harshly, feeling sweat dripping down his forehead.  _

_ "Can we take a break, Gavin? My feeeeeeeeeeeeet hurt."  _

_ “Dude it’s only been five minutes.” _

_ “I know.” _

_ Connor looks at the bay down on the ground, he stops, looking over to see the waves crashing into the rocks, they look like tiny little spears that protect Arcadia Bay from the depths of Neptune! They should play a game like that soon, a pretend one when they go back to Gavin's house after this.  _

_ "Dude come on! We're almost there," Gavin pulls him away from the edge, he points towards the lighthouse, "look!"  _

_ The lighthouse towers over the whole small town, a weird world that he lives in. The paint is starting to wane and peel off but it still stretches, maybe it could be tall enough to break through the clouds that look like cotton candy.  _

_ “I always wanted to see the lighthouse up close…” _

_ “Come on then, hurry!” _

_ Gavin pulls him by the hand. _

14.

_ Dear Connor _

_ I don’t know how to write this. I’m really shitty at doing this whole /thing, like writing a letter and stuff. I’m not good at it, I was never good at it, If i drag this out for too long I might chicken out and never do what I needed to do, to end it. I don’t blame you for leaving, it wasn’t your fault, really wasn’t. I just hate you for not calling, for not sending a single text. _

_ But you’re here now, and it’s the best thing I could ever ask for before it’s all lights out for me. I missed you, I was practically already dead and was just numb and all that depressive bullshit but you, when you came back I felt so happy inside even though I didn’t see it. I don’t hate you, so please don’t hate me for what you’re about to see.  _

_ And if you think you were too late, I was already gone, my body just decided to stay. _

_ Goodbye, Connor Anderson. _

15.

“Gavin?”

There’s this overwhelming smell of something  _ rotten _ , it hits him quickly, making him gag as he covers his nose. What is that smell? Something shouldn’t smell this bad, it’s worse than expired milk that his Dad often forgets to take out back home. He looks at his feet, a dark sort of liquid pools underneath him.

_ Its blood  _

“Hey buddy?” Connor walks over to Gavin, laying there near his bed, “what are you doing laying there?” He lightly shakes him,  _ hoping  _ that he is just sleeping, waiting for him to come back when he goes to the bathroom. 

"Gavin this isn't funny anymore," his eyes glance over to the gun near Gavin's hand, a silence put on top, "come on, wake up." 

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t murmur something incoherent. He doesn’t even move an inch. There’s this sense of panic that begins to slowly take over him, Gavin’s just alive, he just passed out.

"Wake up," he says, tears stinging his eyes, "Gavin please wake up stop pretending this isn't funny anymore." 

His throat feels like it’s closing, it’s getting harder to breathe. His hands feel clammy when he grabs him. He shakes him once, pausing, tear stinging his eyes. Connor shakes him again, harder, more force, feel his knuckles go white, feel his teeth bite his lip too hard and the blood slowly starts to drip from his lips, feel himself shake while he wakes up Gavin.

“Gavin, hey,” he puts him on his back and touches his face gently, his eyes are closed, he’s so still.

_ He isn’t breathing _

"Gavin," he quietly says, resisting the sobs that are stuck inside his closing throat, "Gavin please wake up." 

Connor hears the sudden rapid footsteps race up the stairs.

He sees him standing there, right in front of the room. Connor keeps holding onto Gavin,  _ don’t let go of him, never let go of him, he’s alive, they can get to the hospital _ .

But William looks at Gavin like he already knew.

“Please help me!” 

But he just stands there.

_ Frozen. _

16.

The blanket gives him some sort of comfort, it wraps around him nicely, covering his whole body. But it feels like it isn't enough, he wants it covers his whole body twice, enough that he can't hear the police talking, the camera flashing, the rain pounding against the earth, the nosy neighbours and the insensitive reporters that hope to make bank with this breaking news. He wants to be locked out of the entire world. 

He can already hear the headlines.

_ Former Blackwell student Gavin Reed commits suicide in the quiet coastal town of Arcadia Bay. It's you, isn't it Connor? That caused all of this? That caused Gavin to kill himself, to feel the bullet go through his skull. Didn't you leave him behind? Didn't you travel back time to mess with it all to save his Dad and now he's dead--  _

“Hey…”

Connor looks up, he leans against the house, it feels weird to be here at this moment. 

“Hi.”

Both of them want to break this silence, to not let it draw out and turn into an awkward goodbye a few seconds later. 

“When is  _ she  _ coming home? Does  _ she  _ know?”

He looks at Connor for a moment, eyes blank, face emotionless, it’s like Gavin all over again.

“She’s  _ dead _ .”

_ Drip _

_ Drip _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ goes the rain _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Just like Gavin’s _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ blood _

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Just like his Mother’s _

  
  
  
  
  


_ Blood _

“I think I somehow always knew this would end. After Joyce died in a bus crash, we took down every photo of her, stopped trying. You know, maybe if I did something, maybe if I… you know…”

His words start to tune out of his hearing, everything else is just turning into white noise. Connor’s eyes are blank, lifeless, empty. His lips are still red and the dried blood is still there, he doesn’t want to wipe it off, it’s the only thing he has from Gavin. He blankly stares out into the street, staring at the little girl with a hello kitty shirt on. She looks so  _ confused _ , so  _ terrified _ .

She stares back at him.

The white noise starts to get louder and louder and it's hurting his ears and-- 

“Do you have the photo that you took with me and Gavin?” He asks. The world around him is slowly starting to come back, he’s getting pulled out of the water but the girl isn’t staring back at him anymore.

“I--”

“ _ Please _ ,” he begs, his eyes start to sting. He can’t explain  _ why  _ to him, he can't, it'll hurt too much for him. He needs to fix this mess, to untangle this mess and leave it as it is. Maybe it's better if the universe is played out on its own. 

18.

He stares at the family picture, hidden away inside the drawer. She looks so happy, smiling as she cooks her pancakes on the stove. This was years ago, she looks so _ innocent  _ and carefree. He wants this back, not just for him, but for Gavin. Connor picks it up, holding it up into the sunlight.

“You can have it.”   
  
Connor turns around, he’s right there, standing with the polaroid in his hands.

He hugs him tightly, he feels sobs break through his lips.

19.

_ “Maybe coming back to Arcadia Bay isn’t doing you good, Connor. You should go back with your parents, go back to Seattle, Connor.” _

19.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Connor… what’s wrong?”

He watches him pick up his car keys, telling the both of them that they can’t have a stupid wine tasting, so stupid, they’re just  _ 13 _ who wants to rebel by tasting cheap wine. They’re just kids…

  
Connor watches him disappear.

He walks over to the fireplace, throwing the picture that they took just  _ moments  _ ago. He watches it burn, the polaroid catching on fire, watching it turn black, watching it disappear for good.

"Dude!" Gavin yells, he knows he's just angry, but Gavin doesn't understand, "what the hell? I'm toally gonna kill you--" 

He interrupts him hugging him tightly, head in his shoulder, tears in his eyes. He feels Gavin tense, then slowly loosen. 

“Connor--”

“Hey,” he mumbles, his voice broken, it feels like they’re sharing a secret between them, something that can  _ never  _ spill outside, “just so you know, I’ll always be there for you okay? Whatever happens to you, to us, to your life, just know that I’ll be there for you, okay?” He pauses, looking at the mess they made at the table, “even if it feels like I’m not here, just know that’s wrong, that I’ll always be here for you, okay?”

“Connor,” he says, “dude you’re freaking out. Let’s go upstairs and play some video games,” he takes Connor off him, wiping away the tears so gently that it reminds him of his own Dad, “maybe it’ll cheer you up, how does that sound?”   
  
He nods.

20.

His eyes flutter open.

There are tears in his eyes, he can feel it blurring his vision and stinging his eyes as he wipes it away, staring at the mirror in the corner. This isn't his dorm, there's too  _ much  _ in this room and too many posters of films and art up on the wall beside the bed. There’s the smell of the rain in the air in the early morning from a candle even though it’s dark out, it’s oddly specific, bringing back memories of his early childhood.

He looks at the dresser to his right.

This isn’t his dorm, this is Chloe’s.

Connor stands up, his legs shaky. Gavin's there, right in front of him, laying on the bed under a blanket. He slowly walks closer to him, one step at a time, careful not to wake him up or to break the peace in the air and this is all a joke, a dream, that Gavin's already  _ dead _ .

He shakes off his thoughts.

“Hey,” he whispers, so gentle and bittersweet, he thinks he’s going to cry again. Connor sits next to him, the bed dipping, his hand touching Gavin’s to make sure that this is all  _ real _ . He can’t talk about what happened, he can never say what happened with Gavin. It’ll break him too much, it already broke Connor.

He doesn’t say anything else, the silence is enough. This moment, this stillness in the air is enough for him, feeling like he can finally stop and  _ breathe  _ for just a second. Connor brings his legs close to him, propping it up in front of him as he hugs himself, feeling the need for comfort and warmth. 

“I’m sorry Gavin,” he says, staring at the poster of the movie  _ Moonlight  _ above Chloe’s couch, he recalls the many times that they had study sessions on the couch, leaning against Chloe while she rants about her science teacher.

_ “I’m so sorry.” _

He feels like he can say it many times over. He has two friends, a childhood friend filled with happy memories and joyful smiles in the early mornings in the backyard, quickly tainted as it now grows ugly, their friendship broken and shattered into shards as Connor tries to pick it up one by one.

The other friend, a friend that he just met so recently that they stick together throughout the days. It'll just be them, him and Chloe against Blackwell Academy and it's horrors that lurk in the hallways that take shapes of people. They lean on each other, Connor leaning more on Chloe, with their simple moments like sitting in the sun while sharing headphones or helping each other with crushing homework. But it feels like they're just  _ friends  _ because they see each other every day. 

It feels like he’s choosing between them. But he wants both of them, that’s what Connor is,  _ always  _ wanting more and more. 

The door swings open, Connor looks at the ground, fiddling with his thumb. 

“Connor,” he doesn’t have to look up to know it’s Chloe’s angry tone, “explain  _ everything  _ right now.”

21.

He doesn’t tell  _ everything _ , he leaves the ones that’s too much. Connor can’t tell Chloe that he can rewind time, he can’t tell he managed to go back in the past more than he wanted to do and  _ tried  _ to save someone, only ending up ruining  _ everything  _ more.

Connor cuts up the story, takes little bits out and pastes other things on to make it easier to understand and to follow, to make it not so bad. He can’t tell Chloe  _ everything _ , the heartbreaking things he’s done, the things he had to do for Gavin. 

But Chloe mindlessly stares at Gavin, leaning against the wall as she sighs. He can’t read Chloe, he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. 

Then something clicks into her eyes, lighting up as if she just found the cure for all this madness, hopefully, she does. She pulls something from her pockets, putting it on his lap, it's all just a bunch of papers and photos and maps, he doesn't understand, what is she doing? 

“What the fuck Connor?” She says, standing up, hands on top of her head, “you could’ve died! You could’ve died because you were being stupid and all this shit I--”

“I’m sorry…” he mumbles, enough that Tina can hear it. He picks up the papers and photos in front of him, his eyes widen.

“He’s already been on this  _ before  _ you hit Arcadia Bay,” she says, Connor looks behind him, staring at Gavin, “ _ he was trying to find Tina with all of this _ .”

Photos of Frank in the parking lot, of him dealing with random strangers, one of him dealing with Leo, one of him pulling a gun on someone, one with Tina as she steps into his caravan. There are photos of Leo's car, then his plate number and a bunch more photos of other cars that look like Leo's. Time, places, circles around certain parks and a random flyer of  _ Cyberlife  _ from Detroit.

"What is happening?" He asks himself, pulling out the photos and book from his pockets, "this can't be real, there are photos of Tina in his caravan and another of her driving it," he looks at the other bits of information in the pile, reading a note that Gavin wrote down " _ Frank Bowers, probably more than a thug and more violent than he lets on _ , he… he probably got the other stuff from David…" 

_ This is too much _

The pile is staring at him ugly, it’s the horrifying sort of thing that you don’t want to be right. It has a red hue, a hideous sort of colour that pools into the peaceful but stressful life of Connor. He can’t ignore it, he can’t look away from it. His eyes bear into it, hoping that it isn’t real, it’s fake, not true.

“Chloe…”

She doesn’t answer.

He puts the papers onto the floor.

He stands up, her back is towards Connor. He knows what she’s doing, hiding from him to break down and to cry. He’s like a big sister he never had, always there for him to lean on. Connor sees her shaking, bringing her hands to her face.

“He was already trying to find her,” she says, voice shaky, “but I didn’t do anything, I-I’m so fucking stupid.”

“Chloe…” he brings a hand out to touch her, to let her know that it’s okay, but he retracts it, he knows it’ll break her even more, “what do you mean?”

She quickly wipes away her tears, sighing as she takes Connor's hand. Her hand is shaky, like grabbing Connor at this moment is just an afterthought, she didn't have to grab his hands, didn't have to lead him out to the door as he stares at Gavin. The door closes behind them, there's this oppressive quietness around them. 

It’s dark out, there’s no one in the hallway except them.

Connor looks at her, she’s looking down, Chloe doesn’t want to be seen, she doesn’t want Connor to look at her at this moment. He gets it, the damp tears, puffy eyes and the vulnerability you can be in, you can quickly shatter like glass if you aren’t careful. He’s careful when he holds out his hands, slowly, making sure that Chloe’s okay with this.

He holds her hand so  _ gently _ , so  _ carefully _ . 

“Chloe?”

She looks up at him, getting closer to Connor, her blue eyes look like the water from the deepest and clearest oceans is gone now, it's breaking down, leaking into cloudy waters with a storm in the horizon. Chloe isn't ready for the storm, he knows that. 

She rests her head on his shoulder, she’s still.

“I was with Tina, we were hooking up, met her in a  _ concert _ ,” she says, going on like this isn’t a secret, like it’s just normal small talk about the weather, “I was with her, we were just messing around all the time and we talked about  _ leaving  _ Arcadia Bay behind, like just fuck it! You know? Go down to New York, start a band together and play shitty covers of sad songs in a small bar with other people and go from there.”

She chuckles, it’s a lie that both of them know, “it was a weird relationship that we had. She would sneak into my room and listen to music and make out sometimes then sneak out again and go to some parties that I wasn’t into, but I went! I did it for  _ her _ . Because I’m so  _ stupid,  _ Connor. We only hooked up but I  _ loved  _ her because I'm…" 

She stops talking.

Connor starts to rub circles into her back, hoping that’ll give her some sort of comfort or to bring out a memory of her own. Laying down in her bedroom, the sunlight going through the thin curtains with the gardener mowing the lawn way too early. With Chloe and Tina, rubbing circles in her back while the radio idly plays random pop songs that they don’t like, but wanted it for the background noise.

“Now, she’s _gone._ _She’s _gone, Connor. She was just angry at me just an hour before she disappeared because of some _stupid _argument and walked off. It's the last time I saw her, " Connor can feel her gripping his hoodie tightly, her knuckles going white, "she just wanted to leave at that moment, I… I should have gone with her." 

She stops talking, she just goes  _ silent _ , no more secrets coming out of her mouth. Chloe is just leaning against Connor, holding him tight like he’ll suddenly leave her. He won’t, he thinks that Chloe knows that he won’t go, but there’s this  _ fear  _ he can feel in her silence. 

He opens his mouth to speak, but he pauses. He thinks for a moment, thinking about Tina with Gavin, then with Frank. Does Chloe know? Does Chloe know about what Tina did when she leaves out of her window to go out of the window? Does Tina go to Frank’s caravan, maybe to get money so she can finally get out of Arcadia Bay? Or does she go with Gavin? Who’ll go to the abandoned junkyard and scream to the top of her lungs.

_ Not right now _

“Do you remember the time when there was this freakout in the campus when the principal talked about bringing someone in from  _ Cyberlife? _ The only other staff that supported it was Mr Zlakto. Everyone was freaking out and made a petition to stop that because we were all scared that the  _ Androids  _ were gonna take over the school?”

She laughs, sounding like it’s an  _ actual  _ laugh, it's been a while since Connor heard her laugh, her eyes crinkling, her blonde hair slowly coming undone from her bun because she was laughing so  _ hard  _ about something that Connor told her. 

“I remember,” she says, “and then there was this like…  _ Vortex Club  _ that a few preppy kids tried to get up when the whole madness was happening, It died because no one cared about it.”

Silence, the callous conversation between them that reminds Connor of simpler times is gone, he wants it back. 

“I wanna help you,” Tina says, she gets off him, “I wanna find Tina.”

22.

He stares at Gavin from time to time, touching him by the hand to make sure that he's still there on the bed, alive. Connor would make sure he would be breathing, that his heart is still beating. Gavin can't be dead, he's alive right in front of him, his lips turning into a thin line like it's being stitched. 

He thinks about Gavin laying underneath a pool of blood 

Dead.

  
  
  


_ Drip _

  
  
  
  
  


_ Drip _

  
  
  
  
  
  


“He’s fine, Connor,” Chloe says. He turns around, seeing Tina looking at him, she’s worried as well, he can see it in her eyes. They’re both lying to themselves, Tina isn’t a doctor and being unconscious could damage Gavin forever. They both don’t know when he’ll wake up, he’ll probably have to be taken to a hospital and there’ll be many questions lying in front of them.

Then they’ll never find Tina

He nods, sitting down on the floor with all the papers and photos aligned in front of him neatly, it’s not like a mess anymore. It’s slowly starting to make sense, from David’s creepy obsessing with photos of Leo and Tina and sometimes Chloe and Gavin is helping them, the license plates, the locations and the map.

But there’s the flyer from  _ Cyberlife _ , with its sleek buildings on the front and it's fancy cars and  _ Androids  _ that everyone seems to be talking about in the news. It seems so…. Random, out of place.

It doesn’t make sense.

Connor takes his polaroid camera and takes a photo of Chloe, the flashing filling the room for only a moment before the lamp on the floor and beside Chloe is the only light in the room. He waits for the polaroid, the whirring fills the room. He smiles, touching it, making sure not to ruin it.

_ The storm is back _

_ He can feel the wind on his face. _

_ And the whole bay is slowly getting torn apart and-- _

A loud crack of thunder brings him back to reality, inside Chloe's dorm. They look outside of the window, watching the grey clouds disrupting the peaceful night, the branches reaching to the window, leaving scratches that could last for a long time. 

“There wasn’t a storm predicted in the weather forecast,” Chloe says, they stare at each other for a moment before she goes back to her laptop, looking up any traces of Tina online, any footage or any photo taken of her. They’re grasping straws at this point, but it’s the only thing they have.

But there’s something in the air that doesn’t feel  _ right,  _ like the churning inside his stomach to the  _ storm  _ that came back. He looks back at Gavin, he’s there, he’s fine.

_ But is he? _

He pockets the polaroid, he can’t help the feeling of  _ dread  _ that's slowly bubbling up inside him as he looks back through Frank's book, it feels like something's going to go wrong. 

He shakes off his thoughts.

“Do you have anything on Frank Bowers?”

"I did find some stuff," Chloe says, typing on her laptop, "I found some conspiracy Reddit threads. A lot was hocus pocus but his name is mentioned in a couple of things, apparently, he's into some gang wars and violence, has some connections to some drug lords and the  _ Red Ice  _ investigation.” 

“He isn’t just a drug dealer then, maybe he uses it as a coverup.”

Connor looks back to the photo of Frank and Tina, smiling together with cheap valentine chocolate. It's so sweet and cliche, the photos that you put on framed or hung up on the walls, a reminder from the past to look back to. But Connor knows the blood, sweat and tears behind this. 

He takes all the photos of Frank and Tina and throws it all in the bin.

“Can you look through the license plate of Leo and that barn again?”

“We already looked at it--”

“Not that one,” he stands up, sitting close to Chloe, staring at the laptop screen, “the  _ burned down  _ one, connect it to where Leo went.”

Chloe looks at him for a second, this is the last bit of information they haven’t checked, the last piece of the clue. If this is wrong, if this isn’t right and it leads them both to a dead end it’ll all be for  _ nothing _ . It’ll be over in a span of a second, crumbling before their eyes with the sense that they’ll never find Tina, she’ll be forever lost.

And it’ll be a constant reminder to both of them.

The clicking of the keys on Chloe’s keyboard fills the deathly silence, he’s holding his breath, staring at the screen as she clicks  _ Enter.  _ It doesn't take long, Connor knows that only a few seconds, depending on the state of the internet at the moment. But the seconds that should be a quick start to stretch, turning into hours and hours and-- 

Something pops up.

“It all lines up,” Chloe says, “it lines up with the book on Frank and Leo’s car and where he was and time and… it lines up.”

Connor smiles, feeling the sense of relief washing over him like a tidal wave, “we did it… we actually did it.” 

They let themselves have this moment, it feels like a childish game, a mystery waiting to be solved with pretend detectives. But this, this is  _ real _ , not fake, not behind a screen from a true-crime documentary with gruesome murders and voiceovers. This is  _ real _ , two teenage kids shouldn’t be dealing with this.

The tidal wave dies down, getting pulled back into the shores of fear and dread. 

“Should we tell the police about this?” Connor asks, he feels stupid as soon as it comes out of his mouth.

Chloe pauses, choosing carefully of what words she’ll say, “I don’t think they’ll believe a couple of teenagers based on loose evidence,” she says, “we should visit the barn tomorrow, not now.”

He nods, looking back towards Gavin. He hasn’t  _ moved  _ an inch, he’s still breathing,  _ alive _ . But there’s the terrifying thought that he’ll be in a coma, or  _ worse _ .

“He just needs rest,” she stands up, “you should get some sleep, Connor. You had a weird day.”

She steps over the clues, making sure not to ruin them. 

She opens the door.

There’s a sudden  _ bang  _ brings him back to Gavin lying dead on the floor with the blood pooling underneath him.

For a moment, the hallway is filled with a bright light. Connor feels like he’s moving too slow. Too slow to stand up. Too slow to run towards her. He doesn’t want her dead, not now or ever. No more.

“Chloe…”

She’s shot on the shoulder. Blood pools through her jacket as she winces, holding her shoulder tightly. Chloe’s fine. Chloe’s not dead. She isn’t lying dead in a pool of blood.

He swings open the door. He sees him, it’s Leo. 

Connor’s at the other end of Leo’s barrel. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Drip drip goes the blood  _

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Just like  _

  
  
  
  
  


_ Gavin  _

  
  
  
  
  


_ No one is dying _

  
  
  
  


_ 24. _

He tackles him to the ground, a bullet barely missing him right by his shoulder. Connor's breath is ragged, messy and shallow. He holds Leo down, there's a sick sort of expression on his face. It's like he's taunting Connor, laughing at him from far away with his silly little detective work. 

But it’s saying something else, something else that Connor can’t manage to figure out.

“Where is she!” He yells, taking the gun away from him, putting it on his back pocket. He doesn’t answer. Connor doesn’t expect him to. He just keeps staring at him, not a change, not a flinch. Connor  _ hates  _ it, he just keeps looking at him and all he wants to do is make him slowly suffer.

He punches him hard. 

Then again.

And again.

And again.

Not noticing the doors opening.

The lights flooding into the hallway.

He looks around, seeing the eyes trained on him. From Stacey, the girl in the hallway that always smiles at him is now looking at him like she’s  _ afraid  _ of him. There’s also Bella, the cheerleader that’s probably calling the cops. There’s also the group of girls that always laughs when they pass him.

He looks back at Leo’s face, all bloody with a broken nose, the look on him is still  _ there _ , he hates it. Connor wants to put a bullet through his head, to let it pierce through him and leave him to bleed out in the hallway and to let him rot, to be eaten by the rats and the flies. It’s what he deserves, whatever he did to Tina.

But he looks all around him, he’s slowly coming back to his senses. Connor drops the gun he didn’t even  _ know  _ he was pointing at Leo. He’s shaking, standing up as he looks at Tina, shaking, leaning against the wall as she looks at him like that. He doesn’t want Chloe to look at him like that, hurt, terrified that their little memories will all go away.

He rewinds. 

25.

It didn’t work.

_ It didn’t work _ .

He looks at Tina with the wound on her shoulder, wincing. He looks back at Gavin. He opens the door again. It’s all the same, something is going wrong with his powers as he stares at down at the barrel of the gun. He should’ve rewound further, got a headstart and made sure that Chloe didn’t get shot.

He rewinds again.

26.

His rewinds are getting shorter.

Like the universe is slowly taking away the time from him.

27.

They hide in the gym lockers, his mind still on Gavin. Is he okay? He must be. What would they think about the bandages on his face? Would they notice? He’s unconscious, how would they--

“Hey,” Chloe mumbles, “ _ he’s  _ going to be fine.” She smiles, but she keeps gritting her teeth.

He nods, but he can’t help but feel the fear that’s growing inside of him, eating him from the inside out. Gavin could be hurt, Leo could still be there in the hallway. He can’t think properly, the flashing red blurs all around him and the alarm blaring echoes in the locker room. His vision is going hazy.

  
He has to  _ focus _ . Connor can’t rely on his rewinding too much, it’s slowly disappearing right at his fingertips. 

"What should we do?" Connor asks, his hands feel clammy. Chloe winces, still holding onto her shoulder, pressing on the wound so that it won't pool under her and he'll be all left alone in the chaos. He stares at her hand, looking at the blood that's stained on her hand. 

“I’ll figure it out,” she grins, he hates it, “we can wait out the security or we can go now and drive to the barn.”

“We can’t drive to the barn.”

“Connor we have no choice. Leo’s behind all of this and he just went to the dorms and just  _ shot  _ me, something’s happening. If we’re too late then…

“Then what?”

_ She could be already dead _

But she doesn’t say it, it tastes too foul on her tongue. She shakes her head, her hand shaking with each step. Slowly she stands on top of the bench, looking through the tiny window.

“You’re still hurt,” Connor says, going on his phone to text Gavin the tenth time in a row, it’s a river full of  _ wake up-- _

_ Please wake up _

_ Wake up Gavin _

He stares at their past texts, ones that feel so mundane but brings back the simple memories that they made because they were trying to pick up the pieces, the broken shards of their friendship. Piecing together what hasn’t been destroyed by time and the dust that rots the shards.

_ Please wake up Gavin _

He wipes away the tears he didn’t know he had, “Chloe… you got shot we shouldn’t be hiding.”

“If they get a hold of us. It’ll be all over for us, for  _ Tina _ . They’ll grill us about  _ everything  _ and take our silly evidence and treat it like shit. We need to go  _ now _ .”

“You’re bleeding Chloe!”

“It doesn’t matter about me,” she says, her voice quieter, Connor can see the blood dripping, “you can drive, I can patch myself up with  _ something  _ in my car. We just need to get Tina.”

She drops down, hissing when her feet touch the ground, “we need to go,  _ now _ .” 

“I--”

She pulls him by the hand, leading him out and into the entrance. Connor can see her face, the steadiness in her eyes, she won’t let anything get in her way, he knows that. But she’s still gritting her teeth, her hand that’s gripping Connor is holding him so  _ tight  _ that he knows that it’ll leave a red mark on him.

The door swings open.

Their slow, Chloe almost losing his balance but quickly leans against Connor. They don’t look anywhere else, only staring at the old white Honda that feels like it’s a thousand steps away. They  _ have  _ to make it. This is their only chance.

They drop down to the parking lot, hating the way that Chloe groans in pain. It’s close now, only a few more steps.

But he sees something

_ Gavin’s car isn’t there _

The rusted license plate

The little drawings on the car

The little trinkets on the dashboard.

_ Where is he? _

But he doesn’t get time to think about it, he’s quickly pulled back into the storm with the rain on his face and the lightning screaming at Arcadia Bay for all his faults. Maybe he caused it, caused  _ all  _ of this as he climbs onto the driver's seat, looking at Chloe’s brave face slowly slipping away with the tears in the corner of her eyes. 

Maybe his rewinding causes all of this. 

28.

He looks over to Chloe for a second, wrapping her shoulder with a random shirt that she found in the backseat, hoping that it’s enough to stop the bleeding, a fleeting hope that she has. The blood seeps through the fabric, still staining her shoulder as she leans into the chair, turning up the radio with her other hand.

What comes out is a static mess.

_ “Meteorologists are now stumped with the sudden storm that--some are even estimating with winds that’ll reach--authorities are now advising people to stay inside their homes.” _

Chloe turns it off.

He wants to say something, about Gavin’s car that suddenly disappeared to the sudden storm that formed. Connor wants to fill the silence that’s overshadowed by the bullet-like rain that thunders the car. But the word is stuck inside his throat, he can’t get it out.

He grips the steering wheel tighter.

“Are we close?” Connor mumbles, looking at the horizon, he can’t see much in the darkness. 

“We should be,” Chloe replies.  _ This  _ feels like small talk, back to the first time they met with the awkward conversation in their early friendship. He doesn’t want this, there’s a gap between them that’s slowly growing more and more, he wants to bridge the gap.

But he can't. They're just two stupid teenagers who're probably on the mercy of the universe, with a bullet wound on Chloe, thinking that they can save a girl. 

“Connor?”   
  
“Yeah?”

Silence.

“Nothing,” she says, wincing loudly, “it-it’s nothing,”

“I can take a look before we--”

“Connor it’s fine.”

“You got shot, Chloe.”

“I think the bullet just grazed me.”

29.

The storm is growing.

The grey clouds keep rolling in the murky mess of the storm, it's no longer the fluffy clouds that Connor looks up to when he studies in his dorm while the gentle breeze flows into his room. It's tainted, turn dark and ugly. It's all because of him. 

“Chloe you shouldn’t--”

“I don’t care,” she says, clutching into the car as she steadies himself, “Connor I want to help you.”

“You’re hurt,” he says, looking over to the burned down barn, the soot of the fire and the tar sticking to the broken wood, he looks back to Chloe, “y-you can’t go.”

“I’m going,” she says, breathless, tired, “Connor I’m going--”   
  


She almost slips into the dirt.

Connor catches her, holding onto her tight so that she doesn’t move. She tries to move, feeling her shaky hands pinching his arm, hoping that it’s painful enough that Connor lets go of her and he’ll let go and Chloe can go into the unknown. They don’t know what’s  _ in  _ the barn.

It could be Tina laying there on the wet dirt, flies surrounding her, eyes open,  _ dead _ .

Chloe eventually stops, the thunder roaring in the distance and the rain pounding the car fills the silence. They don’t move, Connor doesn’t want to let go of her. Because underneath his skin, through the determination to find Tina, a lost friend of Gavin or something  _ more _ . He’s terrified, feeling the sense of  _ dread  _ in his bones, mixing in the with disappointment that perhaps that she’s not there and they got it all wrong.

He thinks he’ll be happier to find Tina dead than to find  _ nothing  _ at all. To see the ugly truth, rotting in front of him than the feeling of disappointment break him down.

“Chloe?”

She breaks away from him, wincing as she goes back to the car, her hand on the door, looking at him. It’s like she wants to  _ say  _ something, something important before it’ll all end in tragedy. He can see it in her eyes, it’s different, no longer the piercing ocean blue eyes, it’s murky now.

But she doesn’t say something, only closing the door, shutting him out, leaning against the door while she looks up to the roof of the car. He thinks she’s trying not to cry, maybe she’s blaming herself.

He didn’t realise he’s running, just as soon as he took his eyes off Chloe his feet pounds against the wet dirt, the bits of grass drowning in the dirty muddles and the water slowly seeping through his breaking shoes. He doesn’t care that he can feel the freezing water at his toes. 

He’s inside now, breath quick but shallow, not enough air inside his lungs. Connor leans against one of the beams, staring at the broken hole in the ceiling, letting the rain in as it forms a pool underneath it. The inside is dark, he can feel  _ fear  _ creeping upon him as he steps further and further in the unknown. 

There’s no turning back.

He steps on something  _ hard _ , not like the burned wood.

Connor takes the broken wood on top, seeing something  _ metal  _ underneath it. With each piece he takes off, each one he throws into the darkness he takes a step further to find Tina. But the dread, the disappointment and the fear of it all are starting to fill up, he can feel the panic growing. 

_ Please be there _

He pleads as the last one is thrown away.

It’s a trap door, fairly recently with scratches on top. There isn’t a lock on top, not a sturdy one that keeps things  _ in  _ or  _ out _ . It feels weird, as he heaves the trap door open. There isn’t a lock, he can feel his thoughts wandering off into the abyss with each second. It feels like he’s here because the universe  _ wants  _ him to.

It loudly  _ bangs  _ as it lands on the floor, sending dust into the air for a moment, then, it disappears.

This is it.

He ventures down the staircase, the air suddenly  _ shifts _ , turning cold. He shivers, staring at the white walls full of  _ scratches _ , there it is again, the  _ scratches _ . The light flickers above him. A suppressing silence surrounds him, suffocating him more and more with his erratic heartbeats and his frozen breaths.

“Hello?” He calls out, there’s a door that looks like it belongs to a bank safe, but it’s already  _ open _ . He’s hesitant to step in, to venture into the deep end. Connor can’t see much inside, but it’s dark, there’s a musty smell that smells like the classrooms at school. But, he can taste something in his tongue.

Tasting like copper, like the taste of  _ blood _ .

_ How far would you go to save your best friend’s lost lover? _

He steps in.

His heartbeat echoes in his ears, loud, that’s all he hears. His beating heart. But he  _ feels  _ like someone is watching him, in the lurking shadows or the corners. It's big, huge. There are things in here that look like it belongs to a high tech lab, with bubbling liquids and expensive flasks. The only lights here is in the corners, tucked away as it gives off a yellow hue to the room. 

But he can hear  _ something _ through the walls as he picks up a beaker, bright blue liquid with a label called  _ Thirium _ .

“PLEASE LET US OUT!”

He drops the beaker.

He drops it to the ground.

But Connor feels something go into his neck, something  _ sharp  _ like a needle. He reaches out, palms open to re-do his mistakes, rewind, turn back time. 

But it does nothing.

_ He failed _

He doesn’t want this to end, he’s so  _ close  _ to finding  _ Tina _ . He's right here. But he's pulled away like the water in the beach, back to the waters where he drowns as his vision is blurry, the light going hazy and blending, his head spinning. 

He collapses to the ground. He can feel tears in his eyes.

_ He’s so stupid _

"You really shouldn't have been sneaking around," someone says, he can see them, a hazy figure who's standing right in front of him, "I might turn you into an RK800, I'll name it…" 

_ “Connor.” _

It's Mr Zlakto. 


	5. sacrifices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to apolgize for not getting this out earlier. I feel like I lost interest with this fic and im not really proud of this ending but atleast it's nothing, it's not even edited. Idk. I know it could be a lot better and there are lots of plotholes and spelling mistakes and etc. but I just want this out of the way. I'm sorry :/ btw there are three endings to this ending
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated

1.

His head feels like it’s about to split open as he opens his eyes, but all he sees is the vast abyss of _ nothingness _ . But he can hear things, machinery, it sounds like he’s in a factory. The churning of a furnace, the sound booming all around him, going through cracked stone walls and into his ears. There’s also the sound of something _ loud, _ metal crashing together as it splits apart the echoes of the churning of the furnace for a second. But there’s the bubbling of something, just near him, probably from the table. 

But he thinks he can hear something, a _ voice _. He can barely make it out, but it sounds like a little girl, just a child, she should be playing doll house and making up imaginary worlds in her head of prince charming and silly little unicorns, laughing with her mum in the kitchen as they make a mess making a stupid cake, filled with strawberries and vanilla frosting.

But all he can hear is a distant yelling.

_ “Kara! Kara help!” _

_ “Kara where are you? I’m right here can you find me? Please.” _

She’s just a child

He tries to move, but something is stopping him. He thinks he’s suspended in air, feeling cold metal pressing against his wrist and his ankle, wires snaking across his back and his bare chest. Connor budges the _ thing _that’s around his wrist, moves his legs, he can’t tell what it is, if he can just get the blindfold off he can see what’s around him, he can save the little girl that’s screaming in the distance.

He breathes, he lets the stale air go through him, gives him a little bit more focus as it comes slowly out of his mouth. It’s loud. He can’t think clearly. He needs silence. He needs clarity, for everything around him to just _ stop. _ If he doesn’t think of something, he’ll be dead, maybe thrown into the furnace, feel the fire eat away at his flesh, bones turning into ash, his body turning into fuel to keep the hungry fires alive.

_ He’s so terrified _

A sudden sort of warmth envelopes him, wrapping it’s body all around Connor. For a moment, he thinks that the fire left the furnace and it’s now chasing after Connor for more fuel. But it isn’t, the warmth slowly dissipates.

And he hears a door creak open.

It scrapes along the cold cement floor, leaving permanent scratches along the floor, not even paint can cover it all up. He expects a voice, footsteps, taunting laughter from someone. He’s preparing himself, budging the shackles that’s keeping him in the air, if he’s lucky he can get it off with enough force.

But whoever opened the door doesn’t do _ anything _, they’re silent. Connor knows what they’re doing, keeping still, quiet, not saying a word. They’re probably staring right at Connor, with their horrid smile and sick eyes looking at his bare chest. They’re sick, twisted. How can anyone do this to a person? Watching Connor slowly fall apart, drowning in fear, expecting the unexpected.

“Who the fuck are you!” Connor yells, the fake rage filling the room, but the shakiness, the fear in his tone, it’s there, he can’t get rid of it. He’s always been terrified, fear controlling him to step out of the little box where he life happens. But he did it, he stepped out after meeting Gavin.

This is where it got him.

“Answer me!” He cries. He wants to go louder. He wants to scream even harder. He wants to feel the ground shake, let his voice shake the walls, see the dust fall from the ceiling, feel the anger in his voice spread across the room, halt the sounds of machinery. 

But he doesn’t.

Instead what comes is the ear splitting sound of a gun going off. Connor goes silent. Nothing goes still as he expects. The churning fires of the furnace are still going. The metal crashing together is still seeping through the walls.

He feels himself breaking, he starts to sob. Connor tries to retreat into himself, turning his head away from the door, the tears come out, he wants it stop, stop, stop, _ stop _.

_ Please _

“Don’t hurt me,” Connor says, sobbing, shaking, “please don’t hurt me, just let me go,” he can hear something _ moving, _ something clunky, “I-I won’t tell anyone, I swear you can just let me go, just throw me into the streets or drop me in the middle of nowhere just _ please _let me go.”

He doesn’t answer. Connor can feel his tears soaking through the blindfold. He wants it off so he can see. 

“You really shouldn’t have been sneaking around with Chloe,” Mr. Zlakto answers, he clicks something into place, Connor doesn’t know what it is, “or that you were going to places with _ Gavin fucking Reed _,” he pauses, “I really thought you were better than that.” 

He feels the blindfold being taken off him.

Connor looks at his hands. White robotic arms are holding him in place, wrapping its hands around his wrist and ankles. Some of the paint is peeled off, revealing is rusted metal underneath the white porcelain colour.

But he looks like he’s in some sort of platform, but there’s a white led circle that’s humming underneath him, casting a faint white across him. But the wires that’s connected from the grimy walls to the platform, to his back and underneath a door where the sound of the machinery is coming from.

“What are you doing?” He says, panic in his voice as the sudden studio lights blinds him for a second, seeing the gun on the table and just beyond the table is...

_ Chloe _, laying on the floor, not moving, blood on her head.

“Chloe!” He moves his wrist, trying to shake off the robotic arms that're holding him, not letting him go, trapping him as more tears stream down his face, “get this off me! Chloe! Chloe oh god…”  
  


“That _ whore _killed my fucking back, caught her sneaking around, already shot in the shoulder.”

“Fuck you.”  
  


He laughs, like it’s just some silly joke that he said. He hates how he laughs, hates how it sounds just like he would in class when one of the kids makes a joke, not even a funny one, he would just laugh as he writes something on the board or keeps going on about his lecture. 

Connor hates how he can never look at him ever again, how he looked up to him as a photographer.

2.

He’s slowly giving him, letting little bits of himself break away, slowly losing himself underneath the ruins of a burned barn, in this tiny bunker while he keeps on staring at Chloe. His eyes are blank, dead. He isn’t fighting anymore, he can’t tell when or how it happened. He just knew that after the machinery stopped and the weird chemicals stopped bubbling he stopped.

He just _ stopped _fighting.

And he knows that Gavin wouldn’t like to see him like this, he wants him to fight, scream and rage and thrash the whole goddamn place. But as he keeps on staring at Chloe, his already dead eyes staring at her body that he finally accepted that she was dead a few hours ago, maybe that would happen to him if he keeps on trying, to keep pushing the mystery and pulling away the curtains.

Connor will die, a bullet through his head, his sick teacher will watch the bleed seep underneath his body and watch as the flies slowly drink his blood, worms coming through the earth, eating him along with the maggots that’s slowly eating him alive. Maybe he deserved it, more punishment from the universe.

“Don’t move, Connor,” he says, camera in his hands, the flash filling his vision with white, he lets himself pretend that it’s heaven for a moment before it slowly fades away and reveals the horror that’s right in front of him. His blank face, his lips in a thin line, eyes dead. There are no more tears. There is no more shaking in his body. No more.

_ I’m sorry… Gavin, wherever you are _.

“Perfect,” he says, a sick smile forming on his face. The dread, the fear, in him. It’s all gone.

“Are you gonna kill me?” Connor says, “throw me into the furnace?”

He laughs, just like he did when he tried to fight back a few hours, or was it just thirty minutes ago? He doesn’t know, he lost track of time. Connor follows him with his eyes, watching him work his camera. Turn to the left for a little bit, get the right angle, perfect lighting, capture his isolation properly. It sounds like Mr.Zlakto's books he made and Connor read it, he _ liked _it.

Why did he ever look up to him?

“Connor… you’re too perfect,” he pauses, looks at Connor for a second with a smile that feels like it’s from a wolf’s, “you have no idea what I’m doing here, do you?”

“No,” Connor says, turning away from the hand that he’s putting on his cheek, caressing him like a mother would, gentle, so _ tender, _Connor hates it, “I don’t.”

He watches the very person that he used to admire hum, his _ teacher _. Then he pulls his hand away. Connor feels like he could finally breathe, like the weight on his chest is finally gone. But he knows it’ll be back. He knows that. The weight will be back. But it’ll be different next time. It’ll be a knife, pressing deep into his chest and watching it cut his skin as--

“The future is now, isn’t it Connor?” Zlakto says, he walks over to the table, staring at the door where the wires are running under before turning to one of the chemicals, a bright blue liquid, “and who will pave the future?”

“Us?” 

“Androids, Connor. And you,” he looks over to Connor, “will help me, thank you for being my 4th volunteer, your name will be remembered.”  
  


The dread is kicking back in again, it’s filling his lungs and it’s making it harder to breathe. The life, the reality is kicking back up again in his mind and he’s feeling the air slowly dissipating from his lungs. He wants out. Out. Out. _ Out _.

He starts to move. He’s budging the shackles. He stares at Zlakto as he comes closer to him. Step by Step. Heartbeat by Heartbeat. He’s going to die. He’s going to die. He’s doing to die.

“Help! Somebody please help me!”

“It’s soundproof, there’s no way out, Connor,” he says. Connor hates the way he says it. Slow. Calculating the words. Let it roll in his tongue for a moment. Let it get coated with dread and sickness from his very mind. Then it gets out, just between his lips where he preached so much _ bullshit _in the classroom.

“Let me go!”

“I can let you go after I’m done with you.”

“When is that.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Answer me!”  
  


Silence. Connor hates it. He wants the machinery back on. 

“When I’m done turning you into an _ Android _ .”  
  


The words echo inside him, he feels _ sick _. 

How? How is he going to do that? Is he gonna slice through his skin? Slowly letting him bleed out on the cold floor. Or is he gonna put something in his skull? Wires going to his brain, cutting deep, letting the electricity shock him while he screams in agony?

“Get away from me you psycho!”

He stops. He stares right at Connor. He hates this. Connor wants to punch his head in, if the shackles can disappear he’ll be free, he can jump on Zlakto, he can leave, he can get out. Connor keeps looking at him, watching every move as he slowly tries to find away to rewind--

3.

“When I’m done turning you into an _ Android _.”

It worked, but it’s shorter, his head is swelling with pain. It feels like a migraine. He bites his tongue, he can rewind if he opens his hand big enough. He looks around for a moment, eyes lingering on Chloe.

“How are you gonna do that?”

“I have… ways Connor,” he says, crouching on the floor, getting the camera to line up the perfect shot, “technology is advancing.”

He takes a shot. It blinds him for a moment. Maybe if he gets close enough, he can kick him. If he can get his journal then maybe he can rewind further back, change the very course of this timeline itself. If he can do it, then he can bring Chloe back, he can see Gavin again with his very two eyes. 

“Where’s Gavin? Where’s Tina?”

He doesn’t answer, he just keeps taking shots of him. He feels sick.

“Where are they! Answer me--”

He feels a dull, heavy pain ebb throughout his stomach. It’s still there after a few seconds, coursing through his body as Zlakto shakes out his hand, looking at his bruised fist, wincing. Something suddenly shifts in his face, something _ cruel, _like a hidden face is breaking through the surface, the character. It’s mutating, through the way that he holds the camera or the way that he looks at Connor.

It feels like he’s going to _ kill _him.

But it stops. It’s suppressed. It’s going back down on the earth again.

He spits out blood on the floor, heaving for air. His dad said something once about getting punched, but he can’t remember it. If he was here, if he was only here, he would help him. He would tell him what to do. He would get him out of this hellhole and turn back time to save all of this from happening.

But he’s not here

  
“Listen here,” he says, he’s uncomfortably close to Connor, he wants to push him away, “Tina? That little fucking bitch? She’s my accomplishment, the 1st thing that I turned _ successfully _. Gavin? That sly fucker got here before you, you should’ve seen the look on his face when I watched him slowly die.”

He snickers so _ casually _ , Connor wonders how he manages to look so _ sane _ , “it was… it was so sweet. A teenager wanting to protect his girlfriend that cheated on him with so many other people,” he sighs, eyes so dreamy for a second like he’s looking back through the photo albums of his high school, “but you, you’re different, Connor. You have a fantastic eye for shadows and colour, unlike _ Leo.” _

4.

He’s gone.

He still remembers the shoots he took, how he chuckled to himself when he shot. But he remembered the ones where he yelled the most, screaming at him to stop moving because he fucked up his shot, telling him to move his head in a certain way to get the sense of shitty melodrama nonsense. 

But Connor doesn’t know if he prefers the darkness, the utter silence that’s ringing inside his ears or Zlakto with his blinding lights and sick grins that makes Connor want to throw up. He’s slowly going insane, he can’t _ see _ anything, can’t hear anything besides his loud breathing, he doesn’t even know if he’s still suspended in the air or not. 

Maybe if he reminded enough when he watched him slowly leave, the screeching of the door still echoing inside his mind, that way that he said that _he’ll be back_ _tomorrow morning_. He’s getting into his head, he’s playing seeds into him and slowly making him mad.

And it’s working. It’s starting to feel like hell. 

He doesn’t know if his eyelids are closed or not, it feels heavy though. Connor turns to where he thinks his right hand is, the grip of the arm is hard, but it’s starting to loosen. Maybe if he can squeeze out of the grip he can—

He did it.

He lets himself feel a spark of something that isn’t dread, is it joy? Or is it relief? The fact that he’s just a step closer to getting out of here, he can do it. He takes his right hand and pulls at wires at his back, wincing as he feels the spark of electricity shock him for a second.

He suddenly falls.

He’s on the cold floor, he’s touching it with his own two hands. Connor slowly stands up, using his hands to guide himself in the darkness, the abyss that’s full of creatures hiding in the darkness. He needs light, he needs something to spark in here. He palms his pockets, finding nothing, even the little timetable of his day is gone from his pockets.

Connor finds the wall, the rough cold walls meeting his dirty hands full of dust and mud and maybe blood. He follows the wall to his right slowly, eyes staring at the abyss, waiting for Zlakto to jump on him and maybe strangle him with his bare hands and he’ll slowly die and—

He finds the light switch.

It flickers on, the low humming noise filling the silence. It blinds him for a moment, everything appearing with a hue of yellow and green to his eyes. He sees the full room now clearly, but it’s emptier, bare of the fancy science equipment and the distillations and the beakers that Connor is way too familiar with.

But he looks to where his foot, he sees Chloe.

_ She’s still here. _

He feels sick, he walks away from her, back facing her, he doesn’t want to see her, he doesn’t want to admit that she’s _ dead. _ He just has to find a photo, maybe his journal, maybe a photo that Zlakto took earlier. 

He rummages through the cupboards, hands shaky, panicky, he wants to leave, get out, let Chloe live again. He finds it, it’s right in front of him, in a metal drawer in front of his eyes. There’s photos of Gavin. There’s photos of Chloe. There’s photos of Tina.

There's photos of him as well.

He covers his mouth. He needs to get away. He needs to leave.

_ 5\. _

_ “We can’t afford to do emails, it’s too risky,” _

_ “So is phone calls risky as well?” _

_ “Isn’t selling red ice through the internet risky?” _

_ Silence. _

_ “We need more participants, get more through any means necessary.” _

7.

It’s dark in this room. 

He can’t see for more than a few metres in front of him, but he can see the coloured wires underneath his feet, running further into the darkness. He doesn’t want to step into the pitch black, not even an inch. He’s terrified, what could be lurking in the shadows?

Lights. Yes, a light switch could be nearby, on the walls. He finds it. just to his right. It sputters into the light, filling the stale air with the quiet humming. It blinds his eyes for a second, squinting, blocking out the sky. 

And he lowers his hand.

He feels his heart drop. 

There’s only white light bulb in front of him, just one in the hallway. But it’s enough to see the bare brick walls, pipes that run over him that trickle with blue liquid. But the dried blood on the floor, the makeshifts cages on the sides, pitch black inside, thin sheets of fabric that hang over the cold metal bard.

Something doesn’t feel right. He steps closer, venturing closer to something he thinks he doesn’t want to find out. There’s more of these cages, the hallway stretches more and more and more—

He sees Gavin on a platform, robotic arms holding him up in the air. He looks unconscious, head down, his punk clothes that Connor slowly grew to like still on him, but there’s traces of blood and mud and thirium.

“Gavin?” He calls out, voice shaky. 

“Hello?”

He looks behind him.

There’s a child in front of him. There’s smears of thirium on her cheek, Connor wants to rub it off, to crouch down and wipe it off with his thumb like his dad did when he was younger with batter. Because she looks so _ empty _ through her eyes, lifeless, not a child, just an empty shell with a striped sweater that’s way too long, going over her shorts and long black socks that goes over her entire leg.

He smiles. They need to get out of here. He doesn’t know _ who _this girl is, but they aren’t safe here. Zlakto doesn’t know he got out. Zlakto doesn’t know. He smiles weakly, crouching down to her level while gently smiling, making sure to cover the view of the cage behind him.

“Hey,” he says quietly, “what’s your name.”

“Alice. My name is Alice. Are you my parent?”

“I’m not,” he says, he glances behind her, “where’s your parents?”

He stares at her temple. There’s a glowing led that's circling a soft blue. He bites his lips before he said anything about the led. This is sick, what is Zlakto doing? He needs to find a photo. He needs to rewind back further.

Maybe he can save Chloe, her corpse is still in his mind, lifeless, dead, all because of—

“Alice?”

She doesn’t answer. She stands there awkwardly, so still, like a _ robot _. 

“I don’t think you’re my registered parent or guardian. You can sign up through the Cyberlife parent and child services online, would you like me to sign up for you?”

“Alice—“

“Can you repeat that for me?”

He looks deeper into her eyes. Forcing even harder to smile, don’t let the worry that’s making him drown. He needs to leave. He needs to rewind. He can come back for her if he can after.

He can save everyone here

8.

_ Underneath the piles and piles of photos which makes him sick lies a photo, a bittersweet one, one that Connor hasn’t seen because he was rushing to find the perfect one. _

_ It’s a picture of Zlakto, a child that looks like Alice and a woman. _

_ At the back reads “happy family” _

_ 9\. _

_ “Happy family.” _

10.

_ He did it. He’s not held up by restricting white robotic arms that left bruises on his wrist. He’s on the ground, cold, feeling it against his open palm. He’s facing the ground, he can’t see anything, he can’t sit up, hand tied against his back by the rope that’s digging into his arm. _

_ He did it. He managed to rewind by using photos. His vision is still hazy, his head still feels light and he feels like he’s in water. Connor can’t stand up. He’s at the mercy of what’s about to play out, but he can change this, he can change one single thing and maybe he can get a hold of maybe his journal— _

_ He sees Gavin, he’s getting dragged by the ground. Eyes closed. Silence. No movement. None. Not even a flinch. He’s feeling his heart sinking with each second. It’s leaving behind an emptiness that’s brimming full of regret, full of rage that wants to scream and lash out. But he can’t. He can’t get out of the ropes. But he can only watch, see him getting dragged by his stupid photography teacher that he used to look up to. _

_ He hears something, something coming out of the door. A voice, something that sounds like it comes from a little girl. Just to his left, where all the wires go under. A thud, a loud one. He’s gone. He’s still here. He needs to change one single thing. Connor sees a couple of photos, one on a movable metal cart. He kicks it, watching the liquid spilling across the floor, ruining the photos of him, one where he’s tied up, white background. _

_ Then… just like that, he’s changing _ ** _everything _ **

  
  


_ 11\. _

_ He was just driving normally, casually. _

_ Until everything collapses, his life, his very life that he worked hard for is gone in a split of a second. No more of her laughs. No more dinners that his wife cooks just for the three of them. _

_ The happy little family is gone, like a mirror shattering. _

_ 12\. _

He isn’t at the platform anymore, hung by robotic arms, holding him like a puppet. It’s different, he’s on the floor, he can feel the cold seeping through the thin white paper, he can feel the ground underneath him. He slowly opens his eyes. Head hurts. Pulsing, pain echoing, trapped inside his head. Connor thinks he’s never going to get used to this.

He sits up, trying to regain his memories and what he's trying to do. He looks over to the wall in front of him. Chloe isn’t there, not sitting up lifeless, still, blood on her forehead. She isn’t dead. Not in front of him at least, but she could be somewhere else, dead, Zlakto could’ve moved her. But it’s fine, he lets himself think that she isn’t dead, that she’s fine, alive.

There’s no noise, none except for the sudden silent _ click _ that fills the air, the flash blinding his eyes. He groans, biting his tongue, trying not to let anymore noise from escaping from his dry mouth. He needs to think, he needs a clear mind. Connor looks around him, the machinery is echoing through the walls, he can hear it, the rumbling, the clashing of metal, the _ fire _.

“How’s your sleep?”

He looks up, he’s still here, his photography teacher, a three time winning photographer who retired and teaches in Blackwell academy. He isn’t gonna be teaching in a week, he can come to the piece, release evidence, tell what happened to him. 

But he would’ve rewinded so many times that his story is slowly gonna break down and no longer hold any _ sense _. 

Connor feels the tight grip around his wrist, tight enough that it’s going to leave a bruise. He hates this. He wants to kick him. He wants to punch him. He wants to _ hurt _him, lash out and slit him open, revealing the dirty things he’s done in this basement, this bunker that’s underneath the burnt down barn.

He kicks him, it’s enough for him to let go.

But it isn’t enough to stop him. He comes back harder, punching him in the face, feeling the pain echo, pulsating. Blood drips from his nose, it’s broken. He cries silently, not loud and sobbing but quietly, letting the tears form in his eyes, wanting to fall down his cheek and drop to the floor. 

“You ruined my photos,” he laughs, Connor hates how it sounds, “you ruined perfectly good photos,” he walks away from Connor, back facing him, going back to the table where all the chemicals used to be, replaced by folders and a laptop, “people would pay good photos for those and you ruined them!”

He pauses, Connor inches away from him, “he could never replicate what I do, his photos were so… amateurish,” he takes a camera from the table, “I really only needed him for the money, he’s always trying to imitate me.”

“Get away from me,” Connor mumbles, nails digging into his palm, staring at the door to his left that’s slightly ajar, the one where the wires _ used _to go under. Maybe he can find Chloe in there, or Gavin. But he needs to get his journal, go back to where he was with Chloe at her room.

“I don’t know Connor,” he cooes, he hates how_ soft _ and _ gentle _he’s talking to Connor, “I’ll consider if after you sit still for me, and smile for the camera.” The bright flash blinds him, closing his eyes he can still see it, the lingering bright light slowly dwindling. But as he opens his eyes, he sees his journal, on an open cupboard, the third shelf.

Connor looks back towards him. He doesn’t want to look at him, still reminding him that he _ killed _Gavin and Chloe, somehow turned Tina into an Android, the sick smiles, the despair that was suffocating him when he was stuck there in the silence. But he forces himself to, he can’t let him know what Connor’s doing. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, slowly backing away from him, the camera following him, the lens changing, focusing on him. He feels naked, stripped of his clothes and laying here naked because of the camera. 

“It’s for a project, and… something _ else _.”

“Are you some kind of sick pervert?”

“What do you think?”

The silence is heavy. 

“Where’s Gavin?” He says, looking at his journal, “Tina? Chloe? Where am I?”

“You’re only asking the questions _ now? _” He mumbles, taking another photo, flash blinding his eyes, “oh won’t you stop moving! You fucked up my shot, maybe another dose will help you to calm down.”

His head is still hazy, like he’s still underwater. But he sees him turning his back again, going towards the cupboard, getting a syringe. He needs to do something _ now, _ he can’t let the drugs kick him and make him pass out, by then it’ll be too late.

He could be too late.

Connor groans, slowly standing up, vision going grainy. He feels lightheaded, but he can’t let that stop him. Just a simple shove, just a simple punch straight to the head is enough to kill a human if you aim it correctly. He approaches him.

He turns around, but Connor misses his swing. His vision is way too hazy, his head still pounding with pain. But he falls onto him, a thud fills the air, he feels something _ warm _under his hands. He gets off him quickly, standing up, few steps back. 

Blood pools underneath him. He’s dead. 

He quickly checks his pulse. Unrolling his sleeve, two hands on his wrist. No pulse, none. He’s dead, a corpse, he isn’t alive anymore. He watches the syringe rolls until it hits the wall, the tiny jar filled with something liquid is still intact, rolling on the floor. He’s _ dead. _ Connor doesn’t know how to feel about this. He just _ shoved _him. He hit his head.

It’s weird how easily humans can die. He should be feeling relief, some sort of pressure lifting from his chest. He killed him. He can leave. But he doesn’t feel those things and Connor only feels _ numb _, it’s building up. It explodes inside him like dynamite. He killed him. He killed a human. He’s dead. He…

His breathing is growing quicker, it feels like _ something _is suffocating him, making it harder to breathe, constricting his lungs, cutting off his air. He didn’t mean to kill him like this, now everything is rotting, turning ugly into a black colour, revealing things that he didn’t want to see. His hands are shaky, he’s panicking. Everything is going wrong, everything is—

“Connor.”

It’s Chloe.

13.

They’re outside, Chloe’s on the phone. Gavin looks like he’s been through hell. He isn’t talking to him, he’s far away from him, sitting underneath the tree. He’s quiet, he isn’t like this. He could see the deep wounds, the still fresh blood on his thigh. Gavin tried to cover everything up, but Connor could still see it.

He glances towards Alice, he thinks that’s what her name is, and a woman that looks like her Mother. They didn’t say anything, silent, just like Gavin. They’re huddling close, still afraid. Alice is shivering, he thinks she’s crying into her chest. But the Mother, she’s shivering as well, holding her tight, whispering things like a gentle reminder.

“We’re out,” she says, but he can see it with her _ eyes, _it’s still plaguing hee, “we’re out Alice, we’ll be fine, we’re going to be fine.”

What did they go through? Gavin must’ve been here for only a few hours, maybe half an hour. How is he like this? Afraid and terrified and quiet, in shock. But he doesn’t know how long the two were down there for, days, weeks, months. He doesn’t know, Zlakto reaches endless amounts of cruel ness that could stretch till the end of time.

But they didn’t find Tina. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in a cage, but she was here, she _ used _to be here through the sick photos that he took. Connor saw it in a folder in the cupboard, he can’t let the image of that red lipstick on her lips that Zlakto must’ve put on her. Her screams when she fought. She suture grew tired, grew small. Stopped.

And that’s when she was already dead.

“We didn’t find Tina,” Chloe says, “but she _ was _here, used to be.”

“She could be—

“She’s… not like this, you don’t know her like I do,” Chloe says. But he knows that what he's saying, Chloe is agreeing to, even though she doesn’t want to admit it, she’s most likely _ dead _ somewhere where. But she ignores it, Chloe looking at the sky, pointing towards the rumbling skies above them.

“The storm is still going on…” she says, “it’s been a day already.”

He stares at Gavin in the distance. Gavin notices, Connor knows, but he looks away, shutting him out. He watches him bring his knees in, head down. He thinks he’s crying. He’s feeling _ everything _ break. No, not like this. They _ were _ supposed to find Tina, find something to stop the storm, be happy and go back to normal. But it isn’t normal, everyone is _ trying _ to be normal. Through Alice talking to her mum about dad or Chloe talking on the phone. They’re trying, and he’s hated _ it. _

He palms the photograph in his pocket. If he can just use it, go back, change one thing, maybe he can fix this all to 100%.

“You alright?” 

“Yeah.”

14.

_ He looks at the little girl with her Mother, they must be tourists in Arcadia Bay, or maybe this is just a pit stop. He thinks it’s just the beer talking, or how his vision is going hazy. But she looks just like his Alice, her cute smile, the way she’s adorably awkward, shy. _

_ It looks just like her. _

_ “Are you two lost?” _

15.

_ He’s back at the room _

_ He lowers the camera, the flash briefly filling up the room as it dissipates. He smiles, seeing Chloe right in front of him. He remembers this moment, waiting for the flashback of the wind whipping his face and the rain hitting him like bullets. But it doesn’t come, only the whirring noise fills the silence. _

_ “Chloe…” he pauses, she looks at him, “Whatever happens—“ _

_ “Connor you’re scaring me,” she closes her laptop, “what’s wrong?” _

_ “I want you to… keep an eye out on Gavin, I feel like something is going to happen, I can’t explain it. _

_ “Connor—“ _

_ “I don’t have much time to explain but I’ll probably forget all about this but I want you to get Gavin no matter what.” _

_ “Stop saying things like that. Come on, let’s get back to what we’re doing.” _

16.

_ They’ve been missing for a week now, he’s seen it in the news. A maid and a little girl running away from an abusive home, killed the two parents too. It’s fine, this works for him, the police will never know where they are. He’ll have to thank Leo for the money to build this bunker, machinery. The paintings must be that good, but he prefers photography. It’s restricting, forcing him to think of ways to make this into art. Maybe… he can combine it with this experiment, his thirium prototype. _

_ “Relax, this won’t hurt one bit.” _

_ “Get away from her!” _

17.

He feels blood on his nose. He goes to wipe it with his hands. But he can't. He’s strapped to a chair, feeling the rope dig into his skin. Connor’s still in the room, in the bunker, he’s not outside, he’s not back at his dorm. He’s still _ here, _with the white backdrop behind him and the professional lights that must’ve cost thousands, blinding him with the sheer brightness.

How did he afford all of this?

“Where am I? Chloe! Gavin? Ti—“

“They’re not here,” Mr. Zlakto mumbles, Connor sees him coming out of the door to his left, “your precious friends? The ones that you hold onto? It’s cute.”

He’s alone here, he feels his heart sink, chest empty. It feels like there’s a black hole inside him, swallowing everything up, leaving nothing there except despair and the growing loneliness. He’s _ alone, _Chloe isn’t here to save him, no one is. He told Chloe to take Gavin with her, she did it.

Now he’s paying the consequences. 

“Leo, Leo Manfred he was…”

Mr.Zlakto looks at him so _ intensely, _ the look that he gives when someone is saying something in class. He bites his lip, Mr. Zlakto slowly walks up to him, stretching out the time, he _ hates _it.

“What? Connor you can’t just leave it as your sentence unfinished.”

He doesn’t reply back. He thinks that Leo would come out of that door in Chloe’s dorm, it would stay the same throughout the timelines he’s hoping from. Mr. Zlakto sighs, disappointed like when Connor would doze off into the distance. 

“Sorry for all of this, you were squirming a lot, didn’t have any more dozes, “ he walks over to the cupboard, “I tried to make it as comfortable as possible.”

“Where’s Tina?”

He stops completely. He hates the pause, the silence that sits between them, no furnace, no machinery to fill the gap between. Connor’s waiting for him to face him completely. He could have a gun. He could pull it out from the cupboard and shoot him. But he won’t do that, would he?

“That _ bitch _has been missing for awhile.”

“Where is she?”

Silence.

The ceiling shakes. Connor looks up, dust seeping from the ceiling. 

“You don't know what I _ had _to do to get her. She’s helping me, you’re helping me too.”

He bites his tongue from saying anything else. He already knows what he’s doing. Taking people off the streets, hanging them by robotic arms, watching the wires snake across their skin. This is _ sick _, like he’s a mad scientist, watching people get smothered in pain while they change. It worked. He changed one of them in the other timeline. 

_ Alice _

_ Kara? _

He needs to save them too.

He turns around. A camera in his hands. 

“I’ll set up the experiment later, but for now, “ he steps closer towards him, “you’ll be my subject, my _ art _ ,” he’s one step closer, “my _ creation,” _ another step, “my _ everything _,” then another.

And he stops. There’s three steps between Connor and him. He doesn’t want him to come any closer. He knows what he's doing. Stretching the seconds as long as possible, getting into his brain, making him slowly break. 

“You could do so much _ better _ I saw your photo for the competition, how _ bland _ ,” he laughs, it’s _ supposed _ to be bland, showing the mundane things of life and highlighting the sentimentality, the Polaroid photos, the homework, the smiles, _ all of it _, “I could have you replace Leo for me, he already had his use.”

“No.”

No? Why?”

“Because I’ll _ never _be like you.”

He laughs dryly. Connor’s palms are open. He can’t rewind further into the past, only changing timelines through photos he can go into. But even if just a _ second, _ or two is enough for him. He’s coming closer, kneeling in front of him, camera, _ his _ camera, the one that’s so _ important _for him.

“I never took a photo with a Polaroid before, really tacky. How can you put up with these things?”

“Don’t touch that.”

“You’re biting back. That’s good. Always taking the shot Connor.”

The flash blinds him. The camera whirrs, spitting out the Polaroid. But _ something _ is off, it’s forming way too quickly. It’s… it’s pulsating, moving, shifting. What’s happening. This can’t be right. He _ has _ to stay here, he can save them. Kara. Alice. _ Tina— _

17.

It’s dark.

He isn’t in a chair. He”s _ standing _ . He starts to wander, not really knowing where he’s going. He counts his steps. One. Two. Three. Four. Slowly, carefully. What did he do? He’s messing up so many _ times lines, alternate realities, different universes. _He was just at the bunker, strapped at the chair.

A road suddenly appears in front of him. Then it grows further and farther. Nothingness turning into buildings. Darkness turning into trains and train tracks. Bits of the abyss shifting into skyscrapers. It’s a whole city around him. He looks up, a billboard reading _ Welcome to Detroit, the city of the future. _

It’s not like Seattle. It’s not like _ any _ city he’s been to. It’s different, like he’s taking a peek into what Detroit could _ look _ like in the upcoming years. It looks like it comes straight out of a sci-fi film, sleek glass skyscrapers, holograms, the design. But it looks _ real, _ everything feels like it’s just in reaching the distance of this possibility. 

It’s weird. 

It’s silent. No ones here. It’s empty. An empty ghost town. Just him.

_ “Thank you for helping shape the future, Connor.” _

He turns around. Who said that? It sounds like it came from all’s round him, echoing eerily. The city starts to dissipate slowly, starting from the trees to the skyscrapers, dwindling away as it leaves behind nothing, allowing the darkness to come back in. Then, there’s just one bit left. Just a tiny leaf in the darkness.

He picks it up

_ “We are alive. We are alive!” _

18.

He’s somewhere else now.

He's near the train tracks, it”s frozen, the place where he saved Gavin. He remembers that moment, the pure fear in his eyes as he runs back to him, palm open, twisting the very timelines of the universe just to save a _ boy _. A boy that he’s trying to repair, repairing the bridge between them, fixing it all.

But he’s also _ losing _a lot of things.

It’s only a small bit of the train tracks, but everything around him is dark, nothingness. It’s like he’s made to stare at train tracks, the grass that’s around it, the trees that're swinging in midway, the train frozen, so close to Gavin. But he’s there, he’s _ seeing _himself. Tears in his eyes. Teeth gritted. Hand held open, palm out. Gavin stuck in the train tracks like the reckless teenager he is.

He knows that in another timeline, in an alternate universe. He would be in Gavin’s little secret hideout at the abandoned junkyard. He remembers it. He saw it, glancing through the junk, seeing a sign that says _ Gavin’s home away from home _ on an abandoned outhouse. In an alternate universe, he would be there with him, listening to the radio, the awkwardness that would hang in the air that Connor would miss between them, trying to break their silence by mindless mumbling about Arcadia Bay.

But he’s not that in that alternate timeline. In this timeline, he walked away because he got scared. The sudden _ flash _of the storms scaring him.

He walks away from the train tracks, going the opposite direction.

A light turns on. It showcases Gavin’s room.

He walks closer to this fraction of his memory (he thinks this is what this is, a fraction of his memory, seeing the last 5 days). He remembers this moment being so _ awkward _ , the first time he’s seen Gavin in _ years. _He let him in, only for Connor to awkwardly sit at the chair, staring at Gavin smoking a joint while music plays from the DVD player.

There was that sense of tranquility, that moment of silence in those seconds he spent in the presence of Gavin. It was like his childhood is back, but it’s _ different. _ He wanted to come close to Gavin, to sit on his bed, to look him in the eye, to _ apologise, _ fill the room with so many _ sorry’s _ that Gavin will definitely would say _ it’s okay _ and everything will go back to normal, talk like they used to years ago. But he didn’t.

So now it’s another piece of regret that lingers inside him.

He takes a step.

The light turns on again. It’s him and Gavin in the swimming pool. It’s one of the _ only _things he’s done that’s remotely interesting. It was intense, breaking through doors, opening and uncovering more secrets and finding out files and emails. It was like they were playing detective.

Look where it got them now.

But it’s different, after all of it. He got _ this _moment, it felt like they were friends again, forgetting the lost days that got a hold of them. They were both smiling, laughing like they didn’t care. But they also got a little closer, uncovering truths, slowly repairing the bridge between them.

He starts to hear his voices.

_ “Do you remember what you said back then?” _

_ “What do you mean?” _

It’s past him and Gavin talking. 

_ “I still can’t believe my best friend is a fucking time traveller, you’re a fucking superhero.” _

_ “I don’t know about that, I have to be careful with my power, there’s restrictions and consequences.” _

_ “But your power, it’s changing you, Connor. I can tell you’re not so chicken shit anymore.” _

_ “Maybe it is changing me.” _

The voices stop. He stands there, feeling his chest start to churn. He wants this _ all _ back. He wants to rewind back to the start of the week, change _ everything _so it’s okay. Change it all so he can stretch the seconds he’s with Gavin, make it last longer, choose the right choices. 

But he can’t. His rewind is breaking. He wants more. He _ always _ wants more. Grasping more chocolate bars in the store when he was with Gavin when they were younger. Stealing the crayons from Gavin’s pencil case in class. Always wanting a bit more _ time _when their playtime is about to end.

_ He always wants more _

_ Now he’s paying for the consequences of always wanting more _

The ground beneath him starts to form, cement appearing under his feet. There’s a path that’s just appearing for him to follow, step off the cement and he’ll fall forever, going through the abyss for eternity. A lighthouse slowly forms in the distance, the one on top of Arcadia Bay, the one that he always sees in tiny little flashes along with the tornado that’s _ supposed _ to wipe out Arcadia Bay. It’s blurry, but he can still the light that’s guiding him, going in circles, never stopping. If he can reach it, maybe… maybe he can wake up, or go back to _ wherever _ he was.

But along the path, more and more pieces of his memories starts to appear. There’s Gavin’s car to his right, floating in mid air. He’s in there with Gavin, head leaning against the window, not staring at Gavin, he wanted to at that moment. But those _ five years _clouding the moment in the car. The two of them at that moment, in the car, driving, never took a step to repair the lost years.

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ “You left me.” _

The two of them are walking in the forest. Connor walks closer to the memory, seeing the gap between the two of them, keeping the distance between them, afraid that at that moment, they are going to break, fall apart because of their lost friendship. If he could only go back at that moment, then they would be facing each other.

_ “It’s like the fucking universe is making me put up with you.” _

_ “Sorry.” _

_ “Don’t apologise you know you’re loving this.” _

There’s them in the Two Whales diner parking lot where Gavin’s mum works at. Frank’s caravan is there, Connor just behind Gavin like he always would. Always following him blindly, letting him lead the charge, one hand on the caravan door. He’s desperate for answers, clues, trying to find Tina while all Connor could do in that moment was stand there.

_ “Locked.” _

_ “We’ll deal with Leo’s punk ass later, shit.” _

_ “Frank’s inside the diner.” _

_ “Great uh… he has his keys so how about I distract him and fight him while you go and somehow get his keys while I’m fighting him and then you rewind and--” _

_ “Gavin you’re hurt.” _

He finds more tiny fragments of his memories as he walks closer to the lighthouse. Each one slowly breaking him apart, tearing him into tiny pieces and revealing all the regrets he has. Each one revealing the _ what if’s, _ wanting to go back to that moment, rewind, make it better. It _ hurts _ , seeing each piece of frozen memory right in front of him. He didn’t even say he _ loved Gavin _in those fragments of memories. 

He sees the one where he went back to try to _ save _his dad.

Connor in his ridiculous outfit that looks something that Gavin would wear. He lingers in the doorway with sweatpants and a hoodie, while Connor’s hesitant to come into the house. He remembers Gavin’s eyes being so _ dull _ and _ lifeless _, no more anger and energy in that moment. This moment cripples him just a bit more, remembering what follows after this.

_ “You look like a punkstar, what else changed when I haven’t seen you in so long Connor?” _

_ “I... I don’t know, I thought you wouldn’t answer me.” _

There’s another piece of his frozen memories. It’s his younger self in the living room, standing over the fireplace. He sees his tears, the flames licking away at the polaroid that he threw in. Gavin is behind him, hand on his shoulder.

_ “Dude! What the hell? I’m totally gonna kill you--” _

_ “Connor--” _

_ “Hey, just you so know, I’ll always be there for you okay? Whatever happens to you, to you life, just know that I’ll be there for you, okay?” _

He wishes he _ actually _was

_ “Whatever happens to you, to us, to you life, just know that I’ll be there for you, okay?” _

He _ never _was. 

_ “Even if it feels like I’m not here, just know that’s wrong, that I’ll always be here for you, okay?’ _

He finally breaks. He collapses onto the floor, letting the tears fall down. He wants to go back. He wants to go back where he was five years ago when he didn’t leave Gavin. He wants to go back five years ago when everything was still good and all he cared about was getting caught drinking wine from the cabinet in Gavin’s house.

The floor breaks underneath him. 

19.

“You’re awake.”

Connor slowly blinks open his eyes, his vision blurry, everything mixing together. He can hear things from the outside, muted sounds of the rain pelting the roof over him, the whooshing of the ferocious winds, thunder booming across the sky. He’s hearing conversations too, but he’s most focused on the storm.

It’s loud, _ really _loud. 

_ The storm is here, stronger than ever before. _

He sits up quickly, groaning as he suddenly feels dizzy from sitting up too fast. He blinks a couple of times, feeling a hand on his shoulder.

“Connor, are you okay?”

It’s Gavin.

“You were… I was…”

“Are you hurt anywhere? Can you stand up?”

“Gavin…”

“Are you dizzy?”

“Gavin.”

“Connor, are you okay—“

“Gavin.”

He feels tears in his eyes. Gavin’s here, in front of him. He’s not dead, he isn’t unconscious. He’s right in front of him, kneeling in front of him, staring at him. Connor pulls him close to him, he doesn’t want to let go. Afraid that if he lets him go, he’ll fall unconscious again, never to wake up again.

“You’re alive.”

“Yeah.”

Connor pulls away, wiping the tears away, “where am I?”

“Two Whales, I… managed to get you, Chloe managed to do some cool technology bullshit and managed to track you down from your phone.”

Connor slowly stands up, using one of the tables to support himself. He gets close to the window, peeking through the blinds. It’s dark out, utter _ chaos _. There’s buildings on fire, cars upside down, flying signs and billboards. The tornado is close, he can see it in the distance. It still isn’t the water. They have time to leave.

“We can’t stay here, we need to go,” Connor turns around, staring at the others in here, including a few Blackwell students that he knows through simple _ hello’s _in the hallway and few gossips here and there, “we still have enough time Gavin I—“

“We can’t.”

“Where’s Chloe,” he says, panic in his voice, “was… Tina there.”

“_ They’re _ in the back room.”

He starts to walk, but Gavin stops him, a hand on his wrist.

“Wait.”

He stops, he feels a hand on his hand.

“Here, thought you needed this,” Gavin mumbles, they stare each for a second, the both of them _ wanting _to say something, to get a strew of words out in the open and see how it lands, “your back and other stuff is in there too.”

“Thank you.”

And Connor’s off. He can feel Gavin staring at him.

20.

“Chloe…”

“Connor.”

She hugs him tight, feeling pain slowly bloom in his chest. He winces, gritting his teeth. Chloe notices this, slowly loosening her hug on Connor, slowly bringing her arms back to her. Connor stares at his chest, lightly touching one of his rib, _ probably bruised ribs. _

He looks to the floor, he sees _ someone. _A girl with a strand of blue hair, with the same style from Gavin. Ripped jeans, punk t-shirt, edgy accessories. But her roughed, rebellious appearance doesn’t match how she’s acting, sitting on the floor, blanket wrapping around her,

They stare at each other.

“Are you Tina?” He asks, his voice soft, quiet. 

“Yeah,” she says, trying to sound like she’s fine, voice strained, a bit loud, “I am.”

He sits in front of her, “h-have you seen a Mother and a Child in the—“

“I didn’t,” she stares at her hands, “not from what I saw.”

_ Kara and Alice must not be in this timeline _

That’s good, they’re somewhere else. He sighs softly, “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“I was with you there I feel like you could’ve done something—“

“Thanks to my genius hacking skills,” Chloe interrupts, “I saved you.”

He chuckles softly, he sits up on top of the crates, “thank you.”

“Don’t get mushy on me,” Chloe says, “have you talked to Gavin?”

“Yeah—“

“Properly?”

He stops, turning on his phone. He stares at the lock screen, a picture of him and Chloe in a cafe, smiling. He sees Tina look at his phone from the corner of his eye, his hold on it grows a little tighter. Connor knows this must be confusing, and Gavin not knowing what Tina has been doing behind his back and the many secrets she’s not ready to spill open.

It’s overwhelming.

“Connor?” 

He stares at his messages, “sorry it’s just that Leo left a message…”

He’s hesitant to play it, finger hovering over to press play. How did Leo get his number? He never gave it to anyone except Chloe and Gavin, his contacts looking rather bare bones and empty. It’s strange, creepy, feeling the weird sensation that’s someone’s _ watching _him.

He plays the message.

He holds his breath, Chloe comes closer.

_ “You have one new message. Message received yesterday at 11 pm.” _

_ “Fuck… this is Leo, Connor. I’m sorry,” _ he can hear him sobbing, the sounds of footsteps echoing in the background, “ _ I’m so sorry. I was angry, I didn’t know what was going through me then. Everyone… used me, my dad, my mum, Mr. Zlakto. They’re gonna find me, or it’s him that’s gonna find me. He’s coming after me, whether… I’m in jail or not,” _ he paused for a moment, cursing underneath his breath, “ _ he has connections, power, things that are more power than my shitty money. Soon, he’s gonna come after you too. Run when you see him.” _

_ “Message finished, would you like to delete the message?” _

Chloe and Connor stare at each other, he feels this fear that’s slowly growing. He’s thinking about the _ room _, how he took photographs of him, seeing Chloe dead, the way that he was held up by robotic arms, feeling dread slowly taking over him while he stares into the abyss and—

“Hey,” Chloe says, he snaps out of it, Tina stares at him, she knows what he’s feeling, “we’re here, the storms will buy us some time.”

“Yeah,” he nods to himself, “I know, I’m scared.”

“Good thing we got you out of that hell hole,” she says, “what was it like?”

He freezes, feeling his blood slowly turn cold. He doesn’t want to think about that room ever again. The worst was in another timeline, in a different world. It’s not in this once. This timeline isn’t the one where Chloe is _ dead _. He has to remind himself that.

“I—“

“Chloe…” Tina says, it sounds like how an old married couple would talk. Small gestures or changes in their voice meaning _ something _ , a _ stop asking that _in this case.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, “i shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s okay,” he smiles softly, but it’s not the ones he had before. The both of them notice that. Connor stands up, taking his bag with him, checking inside for his journal and his camera.

“It’s all in there. Now go talk to Gavin, I’ll be in here if you need anything.”

“Chloe I feel like--”

“You had enough of me for like a day, go talk to _ him _ about me,” she mumbles, a soft smile on her face, “go, before I kick you out.”

21.

He walks out of the room. He doesn’t want to. He wants to sit next to Tina, slowly learn who she is. Gavin was with her, and the way that he describes Tina was so _ sweet _. He wants to slowly learn who she is, to slowly go through awkward conversations and tense pauses to deep conversations.

He looks back, seeing a glimpse of Tina. 

  
They stare at each other.

_ Who is she really? _

“Connor?”

He turns around, seeing Gavin’s mum. Her tied back hair, greased stained shirt and her hoop earrings. It feels like it’s back to his childhood again.

“Mrs Reed.”

“It’s_ Ms Reed _ , but call me Joyce, please,” she hugs him tight, the uneasiness he feels goes away when she lets go of him, “we haven’t seen each other properly and I do wish that we met in a _ different _situation but,” she pauses, looking around for a minute before looking back at Connor, “my goodness, are you okay? Should we call the cops about what happened to you?”

“N-not know, I don’t think cops can get into Arcadia Bay anyways. We can report it later, but I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

“It feels like we’re back five or six years ago, you’ve grown so much.”

He awkwardly laughs, “I really haven’t.”

There’s this pause between them, reminding him of the long pauses when he tries to talk to his Dad back in Seattle. Connor tries too _ hard _ to stretch the topic and conversation while his Dad gives up, letting this stillness between them feel _ tense, _ letting the loudness of silence do the talking. But this, this is different. The pause. The stillness. It’s awkward, like the pauses when he tries to talk to his aunt or his teachers. Those three second pauses. Not filled with lingering ghosts that _ used _ to be vaguely a relationship, a _ Father _.

He should talk to his dad after all of this.

She sighs, “it feels like… Gavin’s changed so much.”

“It’s like he’s affecting me.”

“You _ boys _ have always been stuck with each other,“ she says, Connor feels this _ feeling _ inside of him, something _ strange _, “always causing trouble, sneaking out of the house to go to the lighthouse.”

“I’m sorry about that--”

“Promise me you keep him safe,” she says, quickly spitting it out of her mouth. He looks at her. A Mother that still loves her child after all these years, “I know that he’s a handful and all and honestly I don’t know what you’re up to these days when you two found each other again but, just promise me to keep him safe.”

He opens his mouth, but stops.

_ Can he really keep him safe? After all these encounters, countless rewinds, breaking and entering. _

_ Can he really? _

“I’ll try my best,” he says, feeling this sort of _ fear _ that he can’t keep him safe, that his rewinds will suddenly _ stop _.

And he’ll watch him fall to his death.

“Gavin is at the table closest to the door,” she says, “he’s been worried sick waiting for you to wake up.”

“Thank you.”

22.

“Hey,” Connor mumbles. He sits to the opposite of the seat of Gavin. He didn’t want to sit next to him, wanting the space between them when they talk, not wanting that human _ touch _ . He doesn’t want it right now, feeling a sort of _ unease _ everytime he gets touched. This is fine. He prefers this.

Connor looks at Gavin who’s peering through the blinds, eyes tense, “you could’ve _ fucking _ died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“But you _ could’ve _.”

They stop talking. Gavin stops peering through the blinds, he stares at Connor. The conversations, it fills the silence no matter what it is, the two talking about some sort of party, one talking to themselves and the two terrified Blackwell students talking about the mundane things. It’s like they’re _ trying _ not to think of the storm that’s right in front of them.

“I was worried about you,” he mumbles, he looks back at Connor, his hand on the table, palm open, “I thought you were dead, I-I thought that--”

“But I’m here now.”

Gavin touches his right hand, it looks bruised, red. He touches it, wincing. What did Gavin do to save him? Was it just a simple punch? A quick swing to get him unconscious, falling to the floor with a _ thud _ ? Or was it _ more _ than that? Needing more than hands and a punch, Gavin staring down at a barrel of a gun or did he beat him hard enough that he--

“What did you do to your hand?” Connor asks, Gavin puts it under the table.

“I punched him.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah he was… really weak.”

Connor can’t help but _ feel _ this sort of anxiety that runs through him, something that buzzes inside him. He lets Gavin talk, nodding every once in a while to make it seem like he’s interested. His mind is somewhere else, it’s.. It’s trying to pinpoint a thought, linking two thoughts together. It’s foggy, scattered.

He closes his eyes

_ The lighthouse _

_ Rain _

_ The tornado _

_ It’s right there in front of him, tearing through Arcadia Bay. He can’t do anything about it. He can’t do anything. He-- _

He feels blood drip down his nose.

“Connor--”

Lightning crackles in the sky. It’s the loudest it’s ever been. It’s terrifying, he wants to stay here, he wants to hide, he wants to go underneath the table and hope this all goes away. But he needs to stop the storm. He can stop it. He can. _ He has to _ . Connor peers through the blinds, he can _ see _ something slowly form in the distant sea, the swirling of winds, the spinning of clouds.

_ They need to stop this _.

“The storm… Gavin we have to go,” he gets out of the table, “Now!”

He pulls Gavin by the arm. He isn’t budging. He can feel the eyes on him, like spears stabbing him right through his chest. 

“Connor what do you mean--”

“We had all week to stop the storm, we don’t have much time,” Connor says, “we need to go… please.”

“Connor we can’t--”

“We can’t stop all of it! Just please come with me,” he pleads.

  
Gavin doesn’t answer.

He stares at him. Connor lets go of him, it hurts to let go of his arm, feeling himself breaking. _ They _could’ve done something earlier if they haven’t mucked around all week, they could’ve figured out a plan. He had warnings. He’d seen them. He told them to Gavin. 

But they didn’t do anything.

Now it might be too late. _ No _ . He can’t tell that to himself. He needs to try something. Whatever he does. Whatever it might be. It _ has _to work. Everyone is depending on him, even if they don’t know they are. He’s holding countless lives in his hands, from the random strangers who walk the dogs to the very own people that he sees in his very own life.

“I’ll guess I’ll go on my own.”

So off he goes.

Feet against the tiled floor.

Turning into wet dirt.

As he goes through the backdoor.

23.

“We can’t stop this storm Connor!”

The wind howls. Rain starts to hurt more and more with each second as it hits his skin. He can see something on fire, dancing by the harsh winds. How is it not put out with the rain? He looks at Gavin, he’s outside, one foot out. It’s enough to count. 

But as Connor looks around he sees people out in the storm. Someone’s under legs are under a truck, screaming for help. He stares at a kid who looks nine looking for his mum. There’s someone _ dead _ near the diner, pinned underneath a bunch of rubble from a fallen laundromat building.

“We have to do something,” Connor looks out into the sea, finding the lighthouse, “I’ve seen the lighthouse in my dreams and just then.”

“You’re going to die out there!” Gavin yells. He puts his other foot outside. He’s slowly coming closer to Connor. He _ wants _ him to come with him. He _ wants _him to hold his hand, be right there with him, whisper little words to keep him grounded. 

“If you’re not going with me,” he pauses, he looks at Gavin in the eye, “then you can stay.”

_ Please come with me _

“I can do something Gavin.”  
  


_ No I can’t _

“Are you going with me or not.”  
  


_ Please stay _

_ With me _

Gavin doesn’t move. He stays there. Hesitant. That’s fine. He can go by himself. He waits for just a few seconds, stretching out the time, _ hoping _that Gavin will come with him. That these precious few seconds will be enough to convince him.

But he doesn’t move.

So Connor leaves. Back facing Gavin. He wipes away his tears. He masks his fear by biting down on his tongue. It’s cold, really _ cold _ . His T-shirt is already damp from the rain. He thinks he’s shivering in the rain. He feels weak. He bites down his tongue hearder, hard enough to let it bleed. Connor can’t back down. He _ has _to do something.

He’s the only one he can.

His vision starts to blur. He wipes away the blood on his nose. He has to. He has to--

24.

He opens his eyes. 

He’s in his room.

Nothing’s different. Everything is where it’s supposed to be. The books. The plant in the corner of his room. His bed. The photos hanging up on the wall. His open laptop with the tabs open about time travel and wormholes. Nothing’s changed. It’s still the same. The sun is still out, afternoon. He looks outside.

No one is outside.

_ Where is everyone _

“Where am I?” He says, feeling his phone buzz. He takes it out of his pockets, staring at his messages. 

It’s right at him. Through his screen. Against the dark background, white text. He can’t take his eyes off it.

_ Chloe: Don’t leave me to die Connor _

_ Tina: I’ve only been rescued just an hour ago. Don’t leave me to die. _

_ David: Are you really going to let Joyce die? _

_ Kara: We’re still in Arcadia Bay. Are you going to let us die? We just want to run away. _

_ Alice: You can still let us live _

_ North: You’re so fucking stupid. Don’t let them die over some boy _

_ Josh: What are you going to do with them? How are you going to save them? _

_ Simon: Connor think about this clearly _

_ Markus: I’ve known you for so long? You wouldn’t let them die to let one boy live. _

_ Dad: You’re not like this. _

A boy over a hundreds of lives

A boy over a girl.

_ I don’t want to choose _

What does this really mean? It doesn’t make sense. He can save _ everyone _ in here without letting _ someone _ die. He puts his phone into his pocket, looking around his room. It feels so _ strange _to be here after all this time.

It’s strange.

He walks towards the door, slowly turning the doorknob. He needs to leave. Maybe Gavin is here? He didn’t see the storm raging.

The door swings open.

_ “Connor.” _

He’s somewhere else now. Outside on the school grass. There’s no one here, there’s this eerie peace that lingers in the air.

“Connor, hello?”

“Chloe…”

She stares at him in confusion. That’s fine for her. He smiles, feeling tears slowly forming in his eyes. She’s been there with him ever since he got here. She was like a sister that he never had, slowly guiding him through the weather with a steady hand.

_ But she might die because of me _

“You… alright there.”

“Yeah. It’s just… allergies, I guess,” he smiles, hoping that it’s enough to cover it up, “what are you doing here.”

“Dude remember we were going to get coffee? Cafe? Does that ring a bell to you?”

“I--”

“You’ve been stuck in your room for god knows how long you need to get out of there, come on.”

“Okay, okay calm down.”

“You were late! What were you doing in your room, you know we’re going now.”

“Okay! Okay.”

25.

He can see other memories that revolve around Chloe.

They’re casual, nothing crazy like rewinding time to save a friend or breaking into an office to find clues for a missing girl. But… it’s the little sweet memories that count. It’s frozen in mid air, still, like someone took a picture. It’s like the ones he saw with Gavin. He stares at them, smiling softly at him trying to help Chloe with her letter to her mum.

_ “It’s fine, it looks fine.” _

_ “Do you think it’s heartfelt enough?” _

_ “Why don’t you just send a text?” _ _  
  
_

_ “Because it’s the thought that counts! It’s much more personal if you send a letter, you should try it.” _ _  
  
_

Cozy pajamas, laughing, scrunches up paper in the overflowing bin and takeaway. It was one of the weirdest nights with Chloe but one of the _ best _. They ended up talking for three hours while some sci-fi movie was in the background. 

There’s another memory of him and Chloe. The night of the exam. They studied in Connor’s dorm with piles and piles of textbooks and books stacking high, perfectly good notes slowly turning into chicken scratch as the night slowly grew. It wasn’t anything special, but Chloe was there to keep him in check like she always would.

_ “You okay?” _ _  
  
_

_ “Fine, just stuck on practice question six.” _

_ “Lemme see.” _

It feels strange to see his memories frozen, staring at them from a distance. They’re all simple, nothing much too it. They didn’t think much of that moment, but know… it feels so nostalgic and heartwarming. Like looking at the random photos you find in your drawer of you when you’re looking for a pen or those random videos that he finds in his phone. It’s a strange feeling.

He can’t get rid of it. It’s there as he stares at the other memories of him and Chloe. Random moments in the hall. Food trucks. Classes that they have together. Lunches. Every _ single _memory has a story to tell.

_ Don’t make him choose _.

26.

He stares.

He can’t keep his eyes off them. 

_ They’re all staring right back at him. _

The fisherman near the Two Whales Diner who’s complaining about the scarcity of the fish.

The busy parent who he always sees on the phone while carrying a bag of groceries.

The cop that always seems to be in the Diner.

The teenage rebels who skates near the school, graffiting the gym walls during the night, pranking unsuspecting teachers by day.

The carpenter.

The cook.

The two twins.

The homeless lady.

The grumpy grandma.

They’re all staring at him, waiting. It’s like they’re _ pleading _ for him. Looking at him in the eyes, he has _ all _of their lives in his hand. They’re all waiting for him for the decision, the countless people that probably stretch far. They’re not saying anything. They’re not screaming at him. They don’t have to.

Because their eyes are screaming _ Don’t kill us _.

He doesn’t want to make this decision. He _ doesn’t _ want to choose. Anyone but him. He _ wants _ to stop looking at them, but their eyes, they speak so _ loudly _like they’re all screaming. Everyone has their own life, their own little stories etches into their daily lives. He can’t take that away. He can’t. He--

27.

“Connor…”

He slowly opens his eyes.

Rain on his skin. Thunder booming. Wind howling. It’s loud, he feels weak, Gavin’s holding him up with an arm around his neck, he can feel him shake.

_ Is it because of the cold or is he exhausted? _

Connor only notices the damp wood that he’s standing on, the sea is closer now, the rope of _ caution _only dividing them from the harsh waters. He can see the tornado. 

_ It’s already formed _

. His chest feels heavy. It’s getting harder to breathe. If they don’t get to the lighthouse on time.

_ If he can’t save everyone. _

“Gavin.”

“You okay? You freaking me out when you fell over. Do you feel weak, do you--”

“I’m fine, it’s just a side effect of my powers I think,” he mumbles, staring over the sea, looking at the sand just a few metres away. It’s not safe here. They need to leave. The tornado is already starting to tear things apart, picking up the scattered boats along the waters like it’s just a _ toy _. They’ll be safe at the lighthouse but--

“We need to go back Gavin. Now!” He lets go of Gavin, turning back where they came from. Back to the Two Whales Diner where Connor left, where Joyce and Chloe and Tina are.

_ And everyone else _

“Connor…”

“They’ll be in the path of the tornado Gavin we need to go back.”

The ground beneath them shakes, they stare at each other in fear, afraid that in a single second, maybe even in a split of a second, that maybe one of them will get carried away by the tornado, get spiralled up into the air while the other stares helpless. It’s in their heads, they’re already imagining it.

They watch as one of the trees gets uprooted by the wind. The storm is getting harsher. Rain feels like slashes against his skin.The wind is harsh and heavy.

“We can’t go back,” Gavin mumbles, “we’ll be out of the way in the lighthouse.”

“We can’t just leave them!” He yells, _ he hasn’t yelled in awhile _, any tears that form is quickly wiped away by the winds, “your Mum is in there Gavin, y-you can’t leave her.”

“Believe me, I want to. But there’s no point in going back,” he holds Connor’s hands, tight, _ he’s afraid too _, “but we need to be safe, okay? We’ll be fine in the lighthouse.”

“No,” Connor shakes his head, chuckling with no humour, “no you need to go back and get everyone out of the Diner Gavin.”

“I’m staying with you.”

“No you’re not.”  
  
“Yes I am.”  
  
“Leave!”

Silence.

  
Connor takes a few steps away from him, wiping away the tears. He wants to shove him away, no, he wants him a mile away from him. He can’t be near Gavin. He’ll get him killed in the storm. This is _ his _storm. He caused all of this. He needs to go back and save them all, he can’t let Gavin near himself, it’s too risky, his rewind powers are fading away.

“GO!”

“I’m not leaving you.”

The storm grows ever more and more.  
  


He shoves him away.

_ It hurts _

“You need to go,” Connor says, wiping away the tears, “you’re going to get killed in the storm.”

“How about you.”

“This is my storm Gavin! I caused all of this! I’m the one who should deal with this.”

“Okay maybe you’re not the fucking time lord Connor,” he get’s close to him slowly, just a step closer to Connor, “but you didn’t ask for your powers, you saved me and had to go so much shit--”

“No I didn’t--”

“Yes you did--”

“No I didn’t--

“Connor Anderson, you're an idiot,” he says, it’s out there in the open, Gavin said. It’s _ weird _to hear it, “you’re a fucking idiot don’t you get it? It’s none of your fault. None of this is,” he holds his hand tightly, “okay? So just… we just trust that they’ll be fine, Chloe’s smart, she’ll keep everyone safe.”

He looks into Gavin’s eyes, full of tears. He smiles, Connor can feel his hand shake. _ He’s still afraid, no more, no less _.

They’re both afraid.

28.

It’s getting harder with each second.

He’s been looking back every so often, over the trees and through the wired fences to make sure that he can still see the Diner sign is still there, standing, untouched by the storm. It’s only a matter of time, only minutes until Arcadia Bay is destroyed. It’s terrifying to think about how _ cruel _it is for them. 

He bites his lip.

He takes a step, not looking where he’s going. He almost slips, heart dropping for a second, the dirt tumbling away down to the harsh waters. Into the pebbles and dirt goes into the terrifying depths, the crashing of the waves and the tornado. He wonders if he _ actually _ slipped, would he be fine? Going into the storm that _ he _caused.

He wants to stop. He wants to take a break. Connor feels weak, he’s slow and even Gavin knows this. Always taking a bit to take a step or longer to step over a rock, he can that he’s doing it intentionally. He’s looking back. Connor doesn’t want him to look back. He doesn’t want Gavin to see him looking back, making sure the sign is still there.

Standing. Making sure that Chloe is still with Tina, cooping up in the backrooms. Making sure that Joyce is there, tending to the injured, reassuring everyone with unsteady promises. It feels like he’s holding his breath each time he’s looking back, it’s terrifying that in a simple _ second _, they could all die.

“You okay?” Gavin asks, Connor back towards Gavin 

“Yeah, I’m just…”

“Connor… your nose is bleeding.”

He wipes it off, noticing the blood on his fingers. The storm is getting worse with each second. He _ feels _ it getting worse. He’s feeling the wind getting stronger. The storm is getting louder. It’s screaming into the ears, like it’s _ taunting _him of the names of the people in Arcadia Bay.

“We need to keep going, we need to hurry.”

29.

He’s here. 

He can see the whole Arcadia Bay from up here. But the tornado, it’s already close to the town, slowly inching its way closer and closer to the town. It’s picking up the water from the salty ocean, adding more and more to it’s destruction. He can’t let it get it close, if it does, then _ everyone _will die.

Including Chloe, Tina and Joyce.

He can’t let that happen, he bites his lip, turning to the tornado, palm open.

_ Rewind _

He feels pain ebb. _ It hurts really bad. _ The pain, his hand feels like it’s burning and his vision looks like shattered glass, pieces slowly breaking. Everything is muffled, the rain, the thunder. It’s not working. Why can’t he rewind? He did it before.

He breaks apart. He gasps. His palm closes. He collapses to the ground, feeling the mud stick to his skin.

“I can’t rewind.”

Gavin helps him up slowly, being so gentle, picking up the pieces of a broken vase, “Connor--”

“Gavin I can’t rewind,” he tries it again, palm open, _ concentrating _. But only this time, the pain is stronger, harsher. He feels tears in his eyes, he can’t stop, he has to keep going.

“Stop it, you’re hurting yourself.”

Connor’s hand spasms. He stops, arm back to his side, staring at the sky.

_ Why isn’t his rewind powers working? _

This isn’t real. It isn’t. Everyone is depending on him and he can’t let Arcadia Bay fall apart in his very own hands. 

“Gavin it’s not working. Why isn’t it working,” he looks at him, tears combining with the rain on his face, disgusting the salty tears as rain, “i thought this would work, I thought--”

“It’s going to _ work,” _ Gavin comes close to him, he has a polaroid on his hands, _ it’s the one he took in the bathroom _, “you can use this photo, to… to--”

Connor shakes his head, “fuck that, no way Gavin. After all we’ve been through? The times I saved you?” He pauses, looking at the photo in his hand for just a second, staring at the bright blue butterfly, it’s such a random photo, one that he took in the bathroom where… “I’m not… no, no way.”  
  


Gavin grabs his left wrist tight, “Connor you need to let me go,” he looks at him in the eyes, “maybe… all you’ve been doing is delaying my destiny.”

“No, no, I _ can’t _let you go.”

He can’t. Connor _ can’t _ let him go. It’s only been five days, he _ wants _more than these five days. 

_ He always wants more. _

He wants more days with Gavin, these five days are too short. He wants another week, a month, a year, another lifetime. He wants to make up for the lost years, the minutes it takes to respond, turning into hours and then days and weeks, all to avoid the dying flame that could've rekindled back _ then _.

Now… now…

Connor takes Gavin’s hand off him, shaking his head, blinking away his tears. 

“Your friend Chloe deserves to live,” he hesitates for a split of a second before continuing, “_ Tina _ deserves to live even though I know she’s been going behind my back. The two deserves to live _ together _ . My mum deserves to live, not to get killed in a fucking Diner. M-my stupid step-d-d-father deserves to live. _ Everyone _deserves to live way more than me Connor.”

“No, you’re worth just like any type of person,” he says, “don’t say that.”

“Connor--”

“How about Tina? Will she still down there with the sick _ fucker _?”

“You’ll figure it out, you always do. You’re Connor fucking Anderson. Whatever you choose, I just know that it’s going to the best”

“Don’t count on me like that.”

Gavin chuckles.

Connor notices his eyes, the colour of his eyes, how it’s kind green and kind of grey at the same time. HIs hair too, he likes his hair, _ blue _ . Connor likes blue, he likes the colour blue just like the necklace of a skull in Gavin’s neck, or his t-shirt that’s the name of a random band. He wants more of _ this, _ he can’t let him die, he wants more of his hair colour and his clothes. 

He can’t let him go, it’s breaking him apart right now, pulling him at the seams.

“Don’t make me choose Gavin,” Connor pleads, he’s sobbing now, staring at that _ damn _photo, Gavin’s putting it into his own hands, he wants to throw it away and let the wind carry it away, “please don’t make me choose Gavin I-I can’t.”

Gavin looks at him so softly, so _ sweetly _ . It’s like he’s apologizing to him, the way he touches Connor, so soft, so gentle, like a secret _ I’m sorry _, “no, you’re the only one who can, Connor.”

[Sacrifice Gavin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23769532)

[Sacrifice Yourself](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23769721)

[Sacrifice Arcadia Bay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770042)

**Author's Note:**

> Vibe Check
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: blepbean


End file.
